To The Vines
by Dark Caustic
Summary: He's trying to pin down the exact moment it happened. If love is something you seep into gradually – like wading out into the water and not noticing how deep you are till you're watching bubbles rise to the sunlit surface – or if love is something that happens suddenly, like getting hit by a car or struck by lightening. Matt/Foggy
1. I can't get my head around it

_March, Senior Year_

Matt finds himself in front of one of the rose bushes that line the dormitory building he and Foggy live in.

Foggy had told him when the buds came in after the winter frost melted, and two days ago informed him that they'd bloomed again – the same dark pink color they had been in the fall and all last year and the years before, but, still. Matt likes that Foggy thought to tell him, like he does at random times, random intervals, random things.

He's never condescending about it. No, it's more like someone turning up your favorite song when it comes on the radio – an attempt at a little something to make your day brighter.

That's what it is. Foggy makes things brighter and Matt wasn't sure that was a possibility before now.

He waits for the group of women coming down the walk to be out of earshot before he tries it.

He's alone and he just wants to know what it feels like, not because he is actually gonna see it through or anything – Matt's not an idiot and he knows a bad idea when it looks him in the face – but just…

Just cause.

"I love you," he says out loud. He rolls each word over his tongue gently, just to see how it feels, how it sounds, to say that out loud. What it would feel like to say that to Foggy in their dorm room, while Foggy is studying and the heat of the afternoon is pleasant like a good beer buzz. The way Foggy would stop writing and look up and Matt would hear his heart pick up and his breath catch and maybe, _maybe_ he would say it back.

Maybe.

"I love you," he says again, quieter this time, breathier.

He's not that stupid though, Matt knows a bad idea when he trips over it and that would be a bad idea. Bad idea like telling Foggy he can hear his heartbeat and knows he lies every time he talks to his mother on the phone and says school is great and everything is going well.

The way Matt knows he was lying when Foggy told his mother that there was no one in his life on the phone last night.

Which is why he's here, saying it where no one can hear him, where it will do no harm. Just to get it out, just a taste, something released into the atmosphere and maybe that'll be enough to get the feeling out and let him sleep at night.

He's trying to pin down the exact moment it happened. If love is something you seep into gradually – like wading out into the water and not noticing how deep you are till you're watching bubbles rise to the sunlit surface – or if love is something that happens suddenly, like getting hit by a car or struck by lightning.

And here, with the conundrum planted fully in his heart, he still has no idea. One moment they were strangers, the next he would happily turn the world upside down for that man.

XxX

 _Late September, Freshmen Year_

He used to have these _episodes_ sometimes. That's what he likes to call them, to remind himself that they're short and they will pass and everything will be all right. As he got older, they get fewer and farther between, but they would still happen once in a while, and they were terrifying every time.

The human mind is full of folly and though he sometimes thinks himself better than that, shit happens to remind him that he's as flesh and bone and blood and panic as the rest of them.

It's like this: he'll be fine one moment, he'll be himself and his senses fill in all the gaps – the smells and temperature and sound and feeling – he has no problem painting his mental picture in gold and red and it's okay. He can take care of himself.

And then suddenly it's just _gone_ and he's hyperventilating, lost in the black, lost in so, so much black.

There's noise, of course there's _noise_ but that's half the problem. It's like this switch gets flipped in his mind and suddenly he can no longer pull apart the different noises, it's all one wall of white static and that makes everything inside his head spin faster.

When he was younger, freshly blind and freshly orphaned, it felt like the episodes would just _happen_. They were one more horrific thing to pile onto his already derailed life. As he got older, got more experienced with his senses and his lack thereof, he got more control over them, more control over himself, over his life.

But, then again, enough stress on anyone will snap them.

And as much as he tried to keep his head about him, moving into the dorms was stressful - perhaps a little more than he'd expected.

In the dorms, everything was new. The building, the lifestyle, the sounds and smells and vibrations in the walls. Matt thought he was taking it all in stride. He knew, logically, that the dorms weren't terribly different from the orphanage - all those people piled into one building together. But, somehow, it _was_ different. Less organized, perhaps. Less formal control dictating the resident's lives, maybe. He wasn't sure what about it was different enough to make him wary. But he was doing okay, adjusting just fine.

Until. Well. Until he fell.

The second step to the bottom on second floor landing was a hair shorter than the rest. A minuscule abnormality that he took note of the first time he went up those steps and had been careful to not let it trip him up every time he climbed those stairs, several time a day – except for that one time. And that one time he didn't was the time it sent him sprawling.

Matt hit the floor with a tiny crunch – a pencil in his pocket – but still managed to roll over his ankle like a bitch. The tiny flash of pain and panic in the fall sent his entire world skittering sideways, the orange hue of it falling out of view of his mind's eye and leaving

him submerged in total darkness.

It was like he'd gone blind all over again. He's nine years old on his back in the street and watching the world fade away into nothing and never return.

And it's not just the sudden lack of his world on fire, it's the way he could no longer avoid getting overwhelmed by the barrage of sound around him.

The hum of the air conditioner became vague and threatening, doors opening and closing at impossible distances, somewhere, someone watching TV laughs like a bark and it all melts, like the colors of the painting running into something muddy. A singular wall of _sound_ inside his head, large and rattling and indistinct. He lost control of his breathing, felt it growing tense inside his chest and he gasped for breath, sweating through his clothing until—until _Foggy_.

Foggy was suddenly there, saying his name with a sharp, horrified edge to his voice. "Matt?"

One hand on Matt's shoulder, the other cradling the back of Matt's head, searching for a bump to sooth.

Matt hung onto that. Something solid in all that dark ( _like his father's hands a million years before-)_

He had no idea how long he'd been there or how long Foggy had been there, hovering over him, but Foggy just kept saying his name, waiting for a response but Matt could barely control his breathing, yet alone speak.

"Shit," Foggy said, the hand on his neck going to Matt's chest. "Matt, relax, take a deep breath," he ordered gently and Matt struggled for a moment and then complied. Foggy's hand then resting his breastbone and Matt focused intently on it. On where each of Foggy's fingers lay across his body, the way his breathing made Foggy's hand lift and fall.

"Matty, are you okay? Can you hear me?"

Matt managed to nod, not okay enough to talk yet but that seemed to be enough to get Foggy to relax the slightest bit.

Matt reached up and wrapped his hand over Foggy's wrist, keeping Foggy's hand pressed to his chest.

"Can you talk? Do you need to get to a hospital?" Foggy asked.

Matt gained control of his breathing again and let out a deep breath like surfacing from a long dive. "I'm okay," he gasped out.

"Jesus, you don't sound okay," Foggy said and Matt could hear the tremble in his voice and the thunder of his heart – a little louder than the rest of the din.

"Language," Matt said, trying for playful but he was still not okay enough to pull that off. His voice fell too flat, his hand still tight on Foggy's wrist and a feeling crept out of the back of his mind that if he's not careful, Foggy will let go and he'll be lost adrift in the black again.

"Sorry," Foggy said, "I forgot. But you scared me. Are you sure you're okay?"

"Yeah," Matt said and tugged on Foggy's wrist till Foggy got the message and helped Matt leverage himself up into a sitting position. "Really," Matt continued. "I'm fine, I just… I scared myself, that's all. I'm still not used to the dorms and…" he trailed off but it seemed to be enough for Foggy.

"You scared me too," Foggy replied, not pulling his hand away from where Matt's still had a tight grip on it. "Here, do you need help?" he asked after a few moments of silence.

Matt was still for a moment – the urge to prove he's not made of glass was always a strong one – but Foggy had yet to give him the impression that he thought of Matt that way – so he tentatively nodded and let Foggy pull him to his feet and hoped this episode wouldn't change Foggy's opinion of him.

"Can you…" Matt started, cleared his throat and tried again. "Can you help me back to the room?"

"Yeah, of course," Foggy said and Matt could hear the relief in his voice. Foggy wasn't gonna push it – was gonna let Matt do whatever he wanted and that twisted something in Matt's chest. Foggy just wanted to make sure Matt was okay. He scared Foggy but Foggy wasn't gonna let that be a reason to mother hen him.

Maybe that was the moment.

The first step towards confessing love to rose bushes because he never will be strong enough to say it to Foggy.

Foggy let Matt wrap his arm through his and they slowly climbed the stairs together.

"You weren't down there long, were you?" Foggy asked.

Matt, finally getting some of himself back, could hear the worry thick in Foggy's voice and it wasn't…

It wasn't like the nuns who worried because it was their job or their calling or like the teachers who worried about the poor blind kid. Foggy was worried because Matt was his _friend_ and he doesn't want his friend to hurt and something that had gone quiet and cold in Matt's chest years ago woke up with a twinge like a sharp bruise.

Matt shook his head and assured Foggy that no, he wasn't down there long, even though he actually had no idea how long it was.

"No, a few minutes, maybe. Just lost my footing and then," he scratched at the back of his head with his face turned away. "Panicked just a bit," he admitted.

It felt like a dare. His whole life, admitting to any weakness was like opening his throat for the bite but he…he _trusted_ Foggy not to take the bait, not to treat him like glass because of one mistake. He wasn't sure why. He hadn't known Foggy all that long, but there was something so sincere about the man, it made him feel like the risk would pay out.

Still, his heart pounded around that bruised feeling in his chest and there was a voice in his head pleading, _please let me be right, please don't prove yourself to be like the rest._

Foggy finally opened the door to their room and helped Matt inside, and as soon as Matt was stable, took his hands off him.

The world was still black and messy and suddenly, surprisingly, _cold_ without Foggy's hands on him.

Matt locked up again, standing just inside the room, both hands clasped on his cane and carefully trying to will his reality back into existence but it didn't work. The black stayed firmly in place.

He could hear the pieces of the puzzle – the hum of the tiny fridge Foggy put under the window, the cars on the street below, the squeak of a chair on the floor in the room next door – but someone slammed a door and he startled and everything went smeared painting again.

He didn't fall down again but he did take a sharp breath through his nose and grip his cane tighter.

Sometimes, sometimes he thinks Stick was right to leave him.

"Matt?" Foggy asked from somewhere to his left. Matt had no idea what Foggy was doing and it made him dizzy. "Do you…need something? Are you alright?" Foggy asked again, hovering but trying not to.

Matt shook his head. He's not glass, the dark voice in the back of his mind reminded him. He was stuck on the edge of pushing Foggy away or letting Foggy in.

It'd been too long since he'd let anyone in, the instinct to shut down was overwhelming.

"Okay," Foggy said and Matt's glad Foggy was talking again, things felt all right when Foggy was talking. "Anything I can do for you?" Foggy asked, which, honestly, was just another way of asking if Matt was all right without asking the question verbatim again.

Matt opened his mouth. Closed it. Opened it again. Repeated the action twice more and Foggy got the hint.

"Whatever it is, just ask, it's okay," Foggy said. He was such an eager puppy – Matt would've been annoyed if he wasn't so fucking endeared to the asshole and a tiny bit scared by how dark his reality was in that moment.

"Can I listen to you breathe?" Matt asked.

There was a small silence in which the dark voice in Matt's mind fills slowly with terror. What a strange request. Foggy probably thought he was a freak and was merely pretending to be his friend because he's blind and today would be the day that Foggy asks for a different roommate. Someone less _difficult_ , someone more _normal_.

But before it could spiral completely out of control, some other voice told Matt, gently, _stop it, you know he's never lied to you_.

That was it. Even in that state where the world was shadow filled and Matt couldn't pull Foggy's heartbeat out of the noise of the street below, he still knew Foggy to be sincere because he had been every moment up till then.

"Yeah, of course," Foggy said sounding perplexed. "Like, how, exactly?"

"Sit down," Matt ordered gently. "On your bed, on the side of your bed," he amended. "And I'll sit next to you."

"If this is how you hit on women, that would explain your lack of dates," Foggy joked and Matt cracked a smile – small and watery but it felt good – that Foggy wasn't making it _a thing_ , that all he wanted to do was _help_ in whatever way Matt needed.

"I don't date because I'm trying to actually pass my classes, Foggy," Matt retorted.

"Hey, I just agreed to let you listen to me breathe, don't get mouthy," Foggy said, sounding closer. That was good, meant that Matt was already coming down if he could hear how close Foggy was.

"Here," Foggy said and then two of his fingers gently touched the inside of Matt's wrist. "Let me help you." His voice was soft, his touch light. Giving Matt all the room on earth to turn him down.

Matt let Foggy lead him to the edge of his bed and the pair sat side-by-side, stock straight.

"So just… breathe?" Foggy asked after a moment. His voice had a tiny rise in it – he was uncomfortable.

Matt nodded, swallowing thickly around the sudden knot in his throat.

"Okay," Foggy said and Matt heard him take a deep breath in and then let out with a ridiculous sound followed by a short giggle. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry," Foggy apologized quickly. "I'll be serious. But, jeeze, Matt, you scared me. I thought… I thought the worst for a minute."

"You thought I'd died?" Matt asked in disbelief. All he did was _trip._ Like an idiot but it wasn't that big of a deal.

"No, I thought you'd broken your leg and were gonna need to move to a room on the first floor and I'd have to get a new roommate. Couldn't stand a new roommate. I might have to start wearing pants around the room if they move someone in with me who can actually _see_."

Matt let out a tiny chuckle. "What a travesty."

"Glad you think so, but I'll have you know that I'm a fine specimen of a man."

"Sure," Matt agreed sarcastically, leaning into Foggy just a little.

There was a beat between them, a gentle silence and then Foggy carefully placed his arm around Matt. "This all right?" he whispered.

"Yeah," Matt breathed, a line of tension down his back relaxing, the twinge in his ankle feeling distant. There was a few more moments of silence before Matt slipped a little closer to press his ear to Foggy's chest. Foggy hummed a tiny sound of approval and Matt liked the way it felt, the vibration of it against his body.

Foggy didn't speak more than that, just breathed slow and even and let Matt listen to the sound of his chest rising and falling, giving him something to focus on, till the embers of Matt's burning world returned.

XxX

 _March, Senior Year_

He goes to class and then to a study group after his conversation with the rose bush, getting back to his room just before dinner.

Foggy and him have been eating dinner together every day their schedules allow since becoming roommates three years ago. But tonight, when Matt opens the door to their room, he can hear the shift of Foggy's feet on the floor – he's fussing with his hair at a tiny mirror balanced on his dresser.

Matt can smell fresh shampoo; the crumpled, still-wet towel at the foot of Foggy's bed and the sharpness of the cologne that Foggy never wears but is wearing now.

Matt closes the door behind him and makes his way to his own bed. "You're wearing cologne," he says matter-of-factly.

Foggy makes one tiny frustrated noise in the back of his throat over his hair before slapping the comb down on his dresser and saying, "Yeah, I, uh, got a date." He doesn't sound so sure though.

It's been awhile since Foggy had a date and Matt's still not sure if getting coffee with the girl who busses tables at the diner three blocks away from campus counted as a date or not.

"Really?" Matt says, pressing his tongue between his teeth and aiming a smirk in the direction of Foggy's voice.

"Fuck you," Foggy shoots back. "I do have a date."

"You're not that lucky."

"To have a date?"

"To fuck me," Matt says and ignores the way the words make the back of his neck go hot. Foggy's heart is beating hard, but it was before Matt started speaking, too. He's nervous. Matt hears him run the palm of his right hand over his pants to rid it of perspiration.

"Yeah, don't remind me," Foggy snarks back.

"So who was drunk enough to give you her number?" Matt asks.

"Why do you think she had to have been drunk? Maybe I'm just that charming."

"Whatever keeps you warm at night."

He knows Foggy stuck his tongue out at him, but can't tell him that. The slick sound of it sliding past his lips, the tiny hum Foggy doesn't know he makes when he does it. It's sweet in the ridiculousness of it but Matt can't drop the guise he's been wearing since Stick walked out on him.

But if he ever were to tell a soul – it would be this stupid, silly bastard. But it's only a matter of time till some woman sees how amazing Foggy is and snatches him up. Hell, it could be happening right now.

"In all seriousness," Matt says, listening to Foggy tie his shoes. "Do I know her?"

"Yeah – Marci."

"Marci?"

"Don't sound too surprised," Foggy says, but he sounds fond.

"She seems like a handful," Matt says and then snaps his mouth shut. She's smart, a little bit ruthless and probably very pretty, but he doesn't know her well enough to make judgments on her character.

"She's the right kind of handful," Foggy says and Matt swears he can hear the fucking _wink_.

"That all?" Matt asks.

Foggy doesn't say anything for a moment, when he does, he sounds serious and… a little bit sad?

"You know it's not," he says.

Matt can feel a shift in the air, like maybe Foggy's looking at him a little bit hard, and for all the world on fire, there are still some details left to be desired. He can hear Foggy swallow thickly though, run his palm down his pants again, then he's collecting his keys and wallet.

"Hey," Matt says. "Have fun. Don't do anything I wouldn't do."

"Don't limit my evening like that, Murdock," Foggy says, but there's not enough lilt in his voice.

Matt pretends there was and grins at him. Foggy pats him on the arm on the way out.

Matt sits in silence for a few moments then pulls out his phone.

Drew doesn't remember him at first.

They only met once – at some mixer Foggy made him go to at the start of the semester. He's on the soccer team, a bit taller than Matt, healthy as a horse and it gives him a nice, clean smell.

He doesn't pretend Matt's asking him on a date. That's something Matt likes about him – he's direct. Tells Matt he can come over now if he wants.

He has Matt undressed and on his bed within half an hour and he's kissing him like it's the most important thing in the moment. He hasn't shaved since yesterday and Matt likes the way his stubble feels, likes how strong his hands are, the way he's holding onto Matt's hips and rubbing their bodies together. It's a slick-slow warm up, setting a fire beneath Matt's skin, but it's good. Distracting. The smell of his sweat – crisp and sharp – and the rock of the mattress springs creaking beneath them, the rasp of his cotton sheets on their skin.

Drew confesses – and that is what it is, a _confession_ – that he doesn't like penetrative sex. Not top, nor bottom. And his heart rate is elevated from the situation but Matt can still hear how sincere he is.

Matt doesn't care. A hook up is a hook up "And sometimes," he says, one arm hooked around Drew's neck, "society is too hung up on viewing penetrative sex as the only 'true' form of sex because it mimics heterosexual sex."

"You're such a geek," Drew says, tiny smile on his face. Then he gently nips at Matt's bottom lip.

He slicks them both up in some generic, unscented lube and wraps his hand around both their lengths. Matt bucks up as he starts to stroke, the two of them moving in tandem to a sharp and pleasant end.

Afterwards, Drew lets Matt cuddle up on his chest for twenty or so minutes. It's when he starts to drift – just a little, just because there's no way to get a better night sleep then to get a good fuck – Drew stands up and says he's got plans, he needs to shower.

The _don't be here by the time I get back_ is heavily implied as he takes his towel towards the bathroom.

Matt sits in the middle of his bed for a moment. Listens to the water turn on in the other room, the sound of the air moving in from the window, a microwave beeping next door.

He feels cold.

He wonders if Foggy cuddles. If he would let Marci stay against his chest as long as she wanted. If he tells silly jokes or lets the silence stay comfortable around them. If he spoons up to her in his sleep, and likes the way she looks in the morning with her hair mussed and no makeup.

He probably does. Foggy is sincere like that. A whole package sort of guy, even if he acts like a dog sometimes. Matt knows it's an act; he's not really that shallow.

He hopes Marci knows.

He gets up, rubbing the lube off his body with the corner of Drew's blanket before getting dressed.

Before he leaves, he steals one of Drew's t-shirts right out of his top drawer.

XxX

 _April, Sophomore Year_

Foggy called him drunk.

Foggy called him drunk from a bar four blocks from campus. The one that let underage people in even though they had been cited for it before.

Foggy called him drunk and asked Matt to come take him home.

Matt was simultaneously unsuccessfully studying history while listening to the X-Files (He knows better, he really does. But sometimes even he is less than the perfect student) when he got the call.

He sat up on his bed with his phone to his ear and listened to the slurred request one more time.

"Matt," Foggy said. "I need you to come get me and take me home."

"Take you home?" Matt said. "You know you called Matt right?"

"Yeah," Foggy said. "Matthew Murdock. Murdock. Matthew. Matthew Murrrdock. Mmm."

"All right, all right," Matt cut him off with a tiny chuckle. "You do know I'm _blind_ right? Or are you so drunk you forgot?"

"No sir, not at all," Foggy slurred. "Blind Matthew Murdock. Beautiful blind Matthew Murdock. Matthew Murdock, the kid hero from Hell's Kitchen. Yeah, I know you're blind."

Matt giggled a little. Foggy sounded like he'd been having a good time, Matt wasn't sure why he wanted to leave. "I can't drive, Foggy."

"I didn't say to drive!" Foggy defended, his voice rising and Matt could hear someone shush him. Foggy apologized and tried again at a more respectable decibel. "I just want you to come get me, take me home. Please, Matt, I'll do you a favor, your laundry or something. I will explain, just come get me."

Foggy's grasp on time was very tenuous in that state, which was good, because he didn't notice how quickly Matt arrived.

Foggy was hidden out in a corner with three people Matt had never meet before – two women, and a large man who sounded a little angry in his breathing but Matt figured he was the sort of man who existed slightly angry.

"Thank god," Foggy said, his voice low enough that his companions didn't hear him but Matt did and it made him smile.

"This him?" the woman closest to Foggy asked.

Foggy knocked over two glasses and nearly upended the table scrambling to his feet. "Yes," he said, slurring and fumbling for Matt's arm.

Matt let him link their arms together like they often did, ever since the episode on the stairs freshmen year. He could feel Foggy sway slightly on his feet and helped steady him.

"Matt," Foggy said, "Amber, Katrina and Logan. Old friends from high school."

Matt could feel the way Foggy stiffened a little over the word " _friends"_ , like doing a shot of hard liquor. Unpleasant. Not his friends.

Matt smiled anyways, went with it. "Nice to meet you," he said.

"So he is real," the other woman said – Katrina. She sounded the way smoke tastes – vapid and slightly dirty.

"Yes, now it was nice catching up with you but we must be going," Foggy insisted.

"Aw, Foggster, don't be that way," Katrina huffed.

"No, really, things to do, people to meet, you know. Busy busy. Some of us actually got into college," he said and started to pull Matt away with a tiny, sarcastic salute.

Matt felt Logan watched them leave, breathing thick through his nose like he wasn't used to it. Something off about the whole situation, but he didn't press Foggy.

Foggy was drunk but not falling down and he seemed a little more sober once Matt got him out into the fresh air.

"You gonna tell me what that was about?" Matt asked as they walked back to the dorms. Neither one of them had unlinked their arms.

Foggy was silent for a while. Matt listened to the steady tread of their feet, the soothing rhythm of it. Foggy would lean into him now and again – mostly because he _was_ drunk but a little bit of it felt like Foggy just wanted to check that Matt was there, that Matt was _real_.

But, Matt decided that he was making that up to stroke his own ego. Foggy was just tipsy and that word is rather literal.

"I wasn't popular in high school," Foggy finally confessed. "Big shock, I know. Fat geek with long hair from a family as redneck as you can get in New York City, you'd think I'd be the biggest social butterfly, but I wasn't. In fact, I was the school's laughingstock. So I decided to aim for something better, worked hard, studied my ass off and got myself into a good school. After I got my acceptance letter I told myself I would never, ever let anyone make me feel that bad about myself again. The way those jerks back in high school did. You know – that Eleanor Roosevelt quote about how you shouldn't give anyone consent to belittle you.

"I didn't realize it wouldn't actually be that easy. Go out for a drink and those three jerks wander in and suddenly I'm seventeen and pantsless behind the bleachers again. It was like everything I worked for was meaningless for a moment. I'm always gonna be some fucking joke."

"Foggy," Matt said, drawing to a stop and causing Foggy to turn towards him. "You're not a joke. High school isn't who you are. Don't let those assholes ruin your buzz. Few years, you're gonna have your own office and they'll still be right there – drinking two dollar beers and trying to figure out how they're gonna make their paycheck last past rent day."

In the silence that followed, several cars passed them and the night breeze picked at Matt's hair.

"You're good people, Murdock," Foggy said. "Thanks for saving my hide."

"Anytime," Matt replied and offered Foggy his arm again.

The two fell back into stride, back to campus.

"Were you really pantsless behind your high school bleachers?"

XxX

 _April, Senior Year_

Matt doesn't always study in his room but the study room in the library has a vent that is squeaking this week and if he listens to it for one more minute, he's going to rip the vent out of the wall and possibly go on a killing spree with it, so he's studying in his room.

Foggy is… also studying in their room. At least, Matt's pretty sure he's studying.

He's sitting quietly in the corner with several books open but Matt has heard neither pen on paper no turning pages in a while but he can also hear from his breathing that Foggy isn't asleep so… Foggy is _pretending_ to study in their room.

It doesn't bother Matt until he's several hours in and really hitting his stride when Foggy interrupts the silence with, "Marci likes to be bitten."

Matt loses his place on the page and also, suddenly, can't remember what subject he was even studying.

"What?" he asks.

"Marci. We… uh. You know, for a few weeks now."

"Have sex? She's your girlfriend, I assumed as much. You're twenty-one and going to be a lawyer, you can call it by it's legal name."

Matt can practically hear Foggy rolling his eyes. Sometimes, he wishes he'd been blind from birth because then he wouldn't miss it, but sometimes he's glad because he can fill in the blank spaces where body language says what words just can't.

"Yeah, Marci likes to be bitten during sex."

"You sure you should be repeating this?" Matt asks.

"You gonna tell anyone?"

Matt shakes his head.

"I mean, best friends, no secrets?"

"I'm not sure that extends to our sex lives."

"Can it just this once?" Foggy asks.

Matt mulls it a second. He doesn't want to intrude on Marci's privacy, but he also knows he's not the kind of person to spread it around. If Foggy is gonna confide in someone – might as well be him. Besides, Matt feels a little possessive, tight in the chest sort of a feeling at the idea of Foggy telling his secrets to anyone but Matt. So he makes an open-handed _please continue_ sort of gesture.

"That's mostly it. Marci likes to be bitten. I don't mean like a playful nibble, she likes to be _bitten_ , hard enough to leave some gnarly bruises. Really, really does it for her," he says, but he's not bragging. He sounds like his throat is dry, like he's something cornered.

"And you don't like biting her?"

"I guess… no. I mean, like, I'm not some super vanilla fucker. We don't have to do it missionary style by candlelight with Barry Manilow on the radio, or something, I just," he sighs, shifting a little in his chair. "I just don't like seeing bruises on someone I care about and thinking _that was me, I did that_. Even if she likes it, she wants it, she _asks_ for it, it still…makes me uncomfortable." He trails off a little at the end, scratching at his right elbow with his left hand.

"Why don't you tell Marci that?" Matt asks.

Foggy shrugs and then sighs when he realizes Matt can't see him shrug and therefore he can't derail the conversation that easy. "I don't know how to bring it up. It seems relatively harmless. Like a hickey, kinda. It's not like she's asking me to _hit_ her."

"But you're afraid she might."

"Hey," Foggy says putting his hands up in the air like surrender. "I don't judge what consenting adults do on their own time, it's just not all for me."

"No one said it had to be."

"What if it's a breaking point for her?" Foggy asks. He's leaning forward in his chair now.

Matt shrugs. "Then you guys break up. Stay friends, don't stay friends, whatever. Just be civil at least, and she'll go on and find some dude who will bite her and you'll find some vanilla chick with a Barry Manilow collection."

"Fuck you, Murdock," Foggy says but there's a hint of laughter in his voice.

"Is she the one?" Matt asks.

"You did not just ask me that like we're women in some chick-flick."

Matt huffs a laugh. "Yeah, I did."

He hears Foggy shift his weight back in the chair, imagines his shoulders falling with quiet sigh he lets out.

"I mean, I guess not but what does that even mean? That is something we just get from movies. _The One_. No one ever really finds _The One_. They find the person they want to team up with for the rest of their life. That's all. What would _The One_ even look like?"

That dark, half-dead place inside of Matt twitches around a bruise that feels like it's bleeding. "I don't know what they would look like," he says. "But I imagine you get along with them, not all the time but most of the time, when you do argue with them, you'd rather be having a stupid argument with them then a civil conversation with someone else. They look out for you when it counts and when it doesn't. I mean, I'm extrapolating from relationships that I know have worked out, but what do I know? I've never been there."

"Yeah, me neither," Foggy says.

"I guess that doesn't matter. Talk to Marci. Tell her you don't like it, tell her why. She'll think it's sweet, trust me," Matt says, already turning back to his books to find his place.

"All right, but if you're wrong, you're buying the booze when she dumps my sorry ass."

"Sure thing," Matt says.

The next day, Matt finds his rosebush again. Early, early in the morning, the sun just rising and that time on a Saturday means the solitude is easy to come across.

He just…

It hurts to stand by and watch, or _listen_ to Foggy continue on his life, that he's not even sure Foggy's talk of them working together in the future is real or just some fleeting fancy. If Foggy is gonna marry some woman and move out to the suburbs and get some nice, well-paying position with a corporation and never think of Matt again. He's gentle, kind, thoughtful. It's just a matter of time till someone else – some lucky lady – sees that in him and wants him as badly as Matt does.

He doesn't know if Marci is the one or not. Foggy is self-deprecating enough to date someone not right for him. Which is perhaps one of the reasons Matt never said anything.

Pity sex is more bitter than sweet and Matt doesn't want this tainted. Sometimes, even the hurt of unrequited love is beautiful in it's own way.

He runs his fingers over the blossoms and leaves of the rosebush, slowly, so not to catch himself on the thorns.

"I love you," he says to the flowers again. Imagines how he would say it to Foggy. Imagines if it's something that would come out on a drunken stumble back to their dorm, or if he would build up to it. Convince Foggy to go to dinner with him one night – somewhere nice, away from campus, and between dinner and dessert he would tell him. Flat and simple, lay it out on the table with no expectations. Just to have it out there, just so the air is always clear between them. Foggy was the one who had said _no secrets_ that first day they'd met, and he might not be a lawyer just yet but he knows omission is just as much as a lie as a verbal one.

Foggy's bed was still empty when Matt left this morning. He stayed out with Marci all night and Matt tries not to think about him in her room somewhere, if he told her he was uncomfortable and she was understanding or if he decided to just stay and do whatever made her happy. Which frustrates Matt because he wants Marci to see that Foggy deserves to be made happy too.

Matt rolls the pad of finger across a petal and imagines it the flat of someone's tongue, gentle and slick, pushes his hand further across the rose and thinks about Foggy's voice in his confession last night. Like he's afraid the tiniest dissent will be reason enough to leave him. He wonders if that's happened a lot to Foggy in the past – getting left behind for being himself. He's so damn sincere, Matt can see why Foggy's personality would be off putting to some people but it's just another reason why he loves the guy.

Matt's never had anyone bite him before. Maybe no one ever tried because he's blind and it would seem like a cruel surprise in the heat of passion. He wonders, briefly, what the appeal is. Wonders what it feels like to have Foggy press his teeth up against him, nip at the flesh, but would never ask him to.

He deliberately pricks himself on a rose, just to see what it feels like, just to think about the cleanness of the pain, sharp and thick on his thumb. Thinks about how Foggy was probably shy the first time, a playful nibble and Marci would've demanded more, the kind that bruised, the kind that hurt.

There's so much pain in the world all ready, Matt's not sure why anyone wants to add more. But, like Foggy, he tries not to judge.

"I love you as you are," Matt says in a shaky breath, feeling the blood trace down his fingertip.

That's what Foggy _deserves_ , Matt thinks. Someone who loves him, awkwardness and all. There's a gentleness to Foggy that Matt doesn't want to wake up one morning and find it gone, doesn't want a girl with pretty hair and sharp lips to erode away.

Foggy's not back by ten that morning, Matt fishes out his phone and calls Drew.

"Apparently I'm not on the soccer team," Matt says with a smile after Drew says hello. "My roommate just informed me the t-shirt I've got on says 'Columbia Athletics' on it or something. Either way, I seem to have accidently grabbed one of your shirts the other night and, well, I didn't notice for the obvious reasons."

They hook up after Drew's morning practice and before lunch is served in the dining hall on campus. Drew on his knees in front of Matt's bed, the flat of his tongue smooth and slick across his length like the petal from earlier. Matt holding onto the edge of the bed and coming with a tiny cry and his toes curling. He returns the favor with a little less fervor than Drew delivered, but if Drew notices, he doesn't complain. He's simple like that – an orgasm is an orgasm and those tend to be pretty good no matter how one accomplishes it. Matt respects that about him.

Matt asks him for one more round – flat on his back on his silk sheets, the blankets of his bed cast aside and Drew grinding their hips together above him, pinning him down to the bed. He turns his throat up and asks Drew to bite him – _hard_ – right where shoulder and neck meet. Feels the bruise begin to form, the blood rushing to the surface, the way Drew grinds down once more and comes hot and wet across his stomach. Two more strokes and Matt's there himself, his hands clutched at the athlete's back.

It takes him longer than he thinks it should to collect his breath.

Drew doesn't hold him – there are no perfunctory cuddles this time. Drew doesn't pretend this was anything other than what it was.

Matt kind of wants him to. Kind of wants him to get back on the bed and put his arms around him and have Foggy walk in on that, listen to Foggy's heartbeat when he finds Matt naked and tangled up in some other man.

But, then again, that's just manipulation and Matt is a lot of things, but he'd like to believe himself a little bit above that.

Drew kisses him on the cheek and collects his stolen shirt before he leaves.

The smell of sex is so overwhelming, Matt opens the window, tears the sheets off his bed and goes about putting himself back together.

When he returns – hours later with his sheets washed – Foggy is back in the room, face down on his bed.

"You all right?" Matt asks feeling for the corners of his fitted sheet. He can tell from Foggy's breathing that Foggy is not asleep.

"Yeah," Foggy says into his pillow and Matt knows he's lying.

Matt drops his bedding and goes to sit beside Foggy on his mattress.

"Fog," he says and pokes him in the shoulder. "What happened?"

Foggy rolls over and looks up at Matt. Matt hears something hitch a little in his voice and then Foggy's hand is on his neck and it's _right over_ the bruise Drew gave him not two hours earlier. The bruise is hot but Foggy's hand is hotter and it takes Matt two breaths and four heartbeats to realize that Foggy can _see it_ and doesn't need to _touch_ it but he's doing that anyways.

"You had a good night," Foggy says and his voice is level, a little hurt maybe, but not _mean_.

Fuck. Matt is so screwed. Foggy doesn't even lash out when he's hurt. How can anyone be that gentle?

"Uh," Matt says and gives a little cough, his hands fidgeting with the fabric of his pants. "Morning, actually."

He can feel Foggy nod, the vibration down his arm from where his hand is still heavy on the bruise on Matt's neck.

"That's…that's good, Matt. Was she hot? I bet she was," Foggy says and then flops back down on his bed. Matt can hear him put his arm over his face. He hasn't been crying – Matt would've smelt that – but he sounds a little watery.

"Yeah, he was," Matt stumbles over the pronoun a little and Foggy doesn't catch it. "I take it you and Marci broke up?"

"That obvious?" Foggy asks.

"I'm sorry," Matt says.

"No you're not," Foggy retorts.

Matt's face falls and he fidgets a little more, hand restless over the seam of his jeans, the noise heavy in the otherwise quiet room.

"Shit," Foggy says and sits up. "I know you meant that, I'm sorry, Matt. It's just…" Foggy trails off.

"Did you love her?" Matt asks, knowing he might be pressing fingers to wounds.

"I don't know," Foggy says. "But I liked her. We talked all night. I guess it was kind of mutual. We just," Matt knows he's making some sort of vague hand gesture – can hear the rustle of his shirt and feel the movement in the air – "Aren't that way for each other. We're gonna be friends. I think she actually means it, too. I'm just," Foggy exhales loudly through his nose. "I'm just tired of only ever being anyone's _friend_. It's like being good but not good enough."

"Foggy," Matt says, heart suddenly in his throat and Foggy is giving him his whole attention. "You're not—You're good," he says. "Anyone who thinks you're not enough is undeserving of you anyways." He wants to say more but the bruise on his neck is aching and the cut on his thumb still twinges a little so he lets it go.

"Thanks, buddy," Foggy says and claps a hand on Matt's knee. "You're not so bad yourself."

XxX

 _December, Junior Year_

In retrospect, he should've heard it before he opened the door, but Foggy was trying to be quiet and the dorms have always been a little loud and he was going through his mental list of homework and other odd chores that needed to be done that night so he just—opened the door right into it.

"Shit," Foggy hissed, high and breathy and the room a little warm, a little humid.

Matt closed the door behind him and heard the rustle of clothing, a zipper pull and then he smelt it – lotion and precome. _Shit_.

"Uh," Matt said, color rising warm in his cheeks. "Sorry, I can—I can come back?"

"Naw," Foggy cut him off. "Awkward roommate moments bound to happen." He was still breathing a little bit hard and Matt kind of wanted to leave on principle but, for whatever reason he was never able to pin down, he stayed.

"I suppose that's true. Anyway." He moved over to his bed and put his bag down.

"I thought you," Foggy said, pausing to swallow, finally getting his breathing even again. "Had a late class right now?"

"Professor cancelled it to give people more time to write their final papers," Matt explained matter-of-factly. "Is this your designated masturbation hour?" Matt asked and he was trying for joking but the silence that followed made him realize that he had embarrassed the hell out of Foggy and that he was probably right. "Sorry, it's really not a big deal, perfectly normal-,"

"If you give me some healthy young man bullshit speech right now I swear I will hit you with my comparative politics book and that thing is bigger than some eastern European countries," Foggy cut him off.

"Understood," Matt replied with a smile and pulled out his notes.

Foggy didn't move, stayed seated stock still on the edge of his bed and Matt wasn't sure how to diffuse the situation.

Matt sighed after a few moments, fingers shifting restlessly over the pages of a textbook, but not really reading. "Hey, Foggy," he said after he started to worry that Foggy was going to stay that way forever.

"Hm?"

"What do you… I mean if you don't mind me asking," Matt started, not even facing Foggy. "What do you use?"

"Use?" Foggy asked and Matt heard him shift a little, a good sign.

"Yeah. I mean, I didn't hear any… uh. Porn, I guess."

"Are you really asking what I masturbate to?" Foggy asked but he didn't sound like he was shutting the conversation down, more like he was just confused.

"Yeah, I guess so," Matt said. "I never… It's fake. You can hear how fake it is so I never…"

"Watch porn?" Foggy asked. "Shit, I mean, listen to porn?"

"Yeah," Matt said. "Doesn't do it for me, you know?"

"Yeah," Foggy said. "Guess magazines don't do it for you either."

Matt relaxed a little, Foggy sounded lighthearted, the awkwardness drifting away.

"Not really," Matt agreed. "I know they're typically for women but, hey, romance novels do the trick sometimes."

"Hm. Not surprised but I never tried it," Foggy said.

"So then you…?"

Foggy sighed. It was a resignation but not a bad one, he didn't sound angry or sad, just like he was about to talk about something he'd never talked about before. Which wasn't terribly surprising. Most people don't really like discussing their masturbation habits.

"Fantasize," Foggy said. "I just use my imagination. I uhh… Few years back, I saw a documentary on the porn industry and it really unsettled me. The way they treat women, I just. No one should have to hurt in order for me to get off." Matt can hear him shrug. "Capitalistic society, the best way to get something to stop is to cut off its funding. I know, I know porn isn't going anywhere, but I thought I figured it couldn't hurt to not throw my money at it."

Matt was smiling and he didn't really realize it until Foggy said, "What?"

"That's just so… Good," Matt said. "I mean, you're a good person."

Foggy shifted a little and Matt imagined that if he was closer to him, he would be able to feel him growing warmer with embarrassment.

"Yeah, well, got to be a man of your own convictions or else you're just a liar."

"That is true."

"Besides it's… It's more personal. Just fantasizing, I guess. No one is feeding you a fantasy, you're exploring what you want. What you think the pleasure of sex should be, even though it's all fictional, in your own head, it's not… It's not as fake, not as distant. At least, to me."

Matt gave a tiny gentle laugh. "You know, I think the same thing."

"Well, this is one of the oddest conversations I've had this year."

"Sorry," Matt said again.

"Don't be," Foggy replied and he sounded a little bit pleased. Matt's heart pounded a little out of time.

XxX

 _May, Senior Year_

This time, he does hear it, and smell it, and even feels the vibration of the creaking bed through the floorboards but walks in anyways.

He's furious Foggy would let Marci pity fuck him. If she's not gonna give Foggy the sort of things he needs – the sort of love he _deserves_ – Matt is gonna speak his fucking mind.

Except, as soon as he's standing in the doorway and the bedsprings have ceased their squeaking and he can sense two pairs of eyes on him and fucking _smell it_ much much clearer, closer.

It's not Marci.

It's not even a woman.

He knows Foggy is on his back, his breath hard and heart pounding and legs bracketed around the waist of a man that Matt does not know, but can tell he's got a nice body. He's tall and wiry and smells like weed and he grunts out, "Ya mind?"

"Uh. Yeah, sorry," Matt says and closes the door.

He stands in the hallway for a moment. Hears Foggy drop his head against the mattress and say, "Fuck."

"It's okay," the other man says and Matt can hear him lean in and kiss Foggy. His lips are damp and probably soft. He kisses wetly and Matt's mouth goes dry, his blood feels like it's falling down into his feet and he can't move.

They're trying to be quiet. Foggy's hook up – or boyfriend? Would Foggy get a boyfriend and not tell Matt? – is now kissing Foggy's neck and shoulder, rubbing his hands over Foggy in a soothing gesture, hushing him a little.

Then he asks, so quietly that Matt has to strain to hear it, "You wanna keep going?"

Foggy swallows hard and Matt hears his hair brush along his bedspread as he nods and says, "Yeah, yeah, it's fine. Keep going."

Matt turns and walks away and keeps walking and – it's not a conscious effort, but he finds himself at the coffee shop on campus that Foggy took him to the first day they met.

He orders a cup that he doesn't want so he's not loitering and then sits in the corner table with his back to the wall and does not move for hours.

XxX

 _December, Freshmen Year_

Matt was one of a half a dozen people planning to stay in the dorms over the break.

Foggy kept asking him to join him back at his parent's place. "Dude, it's just a few blocks, really, when you think about it. Besides, Hell's Kitchen, old stomping ground and all that. Don't you want to be somewhere _not here_ for a bit?"

"And still have to share a room with you?" Matt asked, but he was smiling. "Your teenage bedroom nonetheless?"

"It's that or the couch and if you sleep on the couch, you have to deal with my grandfather getting up at five a.m. to listen to NPR in the kitchen. I wait at least until dawn before turning on NPR."

Matt laughed. "Really, I'll be fine, Foggy. Go home, spend time with your family."

Foggy slumped against the wall. "I don't like it," he confessed.

"Don't like what?" Matt asked. "Your family?"

"No, they're fine. I don't like you here, alone."

"Foggy, I can take care of myself."

"It's not about you taking care of yourself. I don't doubt you can take care of yourself. I just don't want you to be lonely," he said.

"Who says I'm not lonely when you are here?" Matt asked, trying to deflect.

"Wow, ouch," Foggy replied, pretending to rub at an imaginary wound on his chest. "You're going to be vicious in court."

"So they tell me."

"But, seriously, it's Christmas, you should be with people who care about you. You know, that's what all those cheesy movies and songs are always saying."

Matt focused his attention in Foggy's direction for a moment. "That's… That's very kind of you," he said.

"So you'll come?" Foggy asked and Matt could hear his heart increase a little – he was _excited_ at the idea of Matt coming to his house, meeting his family, being there on Christmas morning.

"Don't you have other friends you'll be seeing? I don't want to be the third wheel between you and your family and your other friends."

"Other friends," Foggy said with a laugh. "It's like you don't know me at all, Matthew Murdock." His voice was humorless then. He was working his mouth but not talking, maybe running his tongue over the back of his teeth in frustration – Matt could hear the slightly wet sound of it. "I don't," Foggy said and dropped his voice even lower. "Don't really have any other friends. Let's just say I wasn't popular in high school."

"You don't have to be popular to have friends," Matt remarked, his voice wasn't as kind as he meant it to be. Shit.

"Then where are your high school buddies? Old orphanage friends? Anyone else invite you home for the holidays?"

Matt shrugged and shifted slightly away from Foggy's gaze. "No, no other invites. And, I dunno, I've always been kind of a loner, I guess."

"See, that's what I mean," Foggy said. "We've both been solitary, before. But not… Not now, yeah?" The way he asked it – it was like getting hit a little bit. Like he wasn't sure if Matt considered him a friend or not. Like Matt was just _putting up_ with him.

"Yeah," Matt said. "Not now."

Matt didn't go right away. There is something to be said about a little bit of solitude. But he did join Foggy four days into the winter break. He slept on the trundle bed in Foggy's childhood room. He let Mrs. Nelson make a fuss over him, listened to NPR with Foggy's grandfather, gave and received several hastily purchased gifts and tried not to think about why no one got close to Foggy before.

XxX

 _May, Senior Year_

Foggy doesn't say anything when Matt finally gets brave enough to go back to their room.

It's almost dusk.

It doesn't smell terribly of sex. Foggy's opened the window at some point to air it out, changed his sheets, took a shower, threw out the trash.

He doesn't turn towards Matt when Matt comes in.

Matt stands in the doorway for a moment, giving Foggy time to tell him he still needs space or something, but when Foggy says nothing, he closes the door quietly behind him and goes to sit on his own bed.

"If you…" Foggy starts, he sounds like he might have been crying at one point, his nose a little clogged. "If you want to request a different roommate, I would understand," he says.

Matt pauses. "Why would I do that?"

"I know that you're not… that you don't… that most people are…"

Foggy can't get the words out. Foggy talks _all the time_ and now he can't talk at all.

Matt almost stops breathing.

"I mean, I understand if you are uncomfortable because I'm sometimes interested in other men," he says, his voice so level Matt can tell he's been practicing that line for hours. "I won't be insulted if you don't want to share a room with me anymore."

"Foggy, I don't care who you sleep with," he says. "It doesn't make me uncomfortable. It's your body and your life and it's utterly inconsequential to me who you have relations with. I'm sorry I walked in on you," he says, trying to sound comforting but not sure he is. "I didn't see anything for what it's worth," he adds in a poor attempt to lighten the mood.

It doesn't work.

Foggy _is_ crying now. "I knew you'd try to be so cool about it, Matt. But I also know it's not that simple," he says. "Everyone, they just…" he sniffles, takes a breath and when he speaks again, his voice is almost even. "Just tell me you're gonna switch roommates. Just don't do it behind my back. Say it to my face."

He sounds almost vicious, a line of hurt in his voice that he's disguising with anger and Matt feels like he missed a step. Something's really not right.

"Foggy, do you want me to get a different roommate? Do you want a different roommate? Look, I'm sorry I walked in on you, I'll be more careful. But it doesn't have to be a big deal if you don't want it to be. And if you're so uncomfortable about it, you are more than welcome to request a room change yourself but _I'm_ not bothered by it or by you or your preference or whatever it is you're so scared about, Foggy, I promise. You don't need to change roommates if you don't want to," Matt says.

There is a short silence that hangs between them. Foggy sniffles a bit, Matt can't stop his hands from fidgeting. He turns his face away a little, feeling the words out in his mind before he finally says them.

"And, if you did, if you left, I would miss you, Foggy."

It's like throwing the gauntlet down, letting that feeling out. He likes Foggy – the eager puppy that he is – he loves that kid and now he's scared that some stupid little incident is gonna tear up everything between them and Matt's not sure he'll bounce back from that. Not sure he'll ever let anyone in again if Foggy leaves.

Foggy's the only one to ever treat him the way he needs and wants to be treated. He never acts like Matt is breakable but still lets him lean on him when he needs, and he's suddenly scared that Foggy's gonna walk out that door and take everything from him. Because Foggy was right that Christmas – he doesn't really have anyone else. And Foggy's not just anyone – he's the person Matt loves.

He loves how Foggy is passionate and a bit reckless and he's smart and tender-hearted and eager. He has a vibrancy to him that life forgot to give Matt when the cards were being dealt. It reminds him of sunrises – the golden light and the warmth of day melting away dew. It's rare and Matt, perhaps selfishly, doesn't wanna let go of it.

"Really?" Foggy says and Matt can hear he doesn't believe him, not one bit and Matt doesn't know why. He's always been honest with Foggy. "You'd miss me?" he repeats.

Something breaks, that bruised place inside of Matt is ringing with the pain of it. "I'd miss you so much," Matt says. "You're my friend, Foggy. Of course I would miss you."

Foggy cries a little bit harder for a moment. "I'm sorry," he says wetly. "I just assumed you'd be uncomfortable."

Matt shrugs. "If I were uncomfortable it would be a sort of pot, kettle situation."

"What?" Foggy asks, his tears slowing. Matt hears his heartbeat make a noise like a stutter and he'd give anything to put the man at ease.

Matt shrugs again. Who he is – it doesn't really bother him. Never has, but he's also never really talked about it either. Catholicism, the hectic nature of the orphanage, a general lack of close friendships, he's never felt comfortable enough to talk about it, and it never really seemed to matter. He's always been the sort of person to do what he wanted to do anyways.

But, still, it feels daring to lay out all out there to Foggy. Because Foggy deserves to know and Foggy is the only one Matt would dare trust with his more delicate feelings anyways. Foggy's the only one who's ever really cared about Matt in the past decade.

"I've been known to sleep with men sometimes," Matt says. "Stopped caring terribly much about gender a little while back. Maybe I never did, I'm not entirely sure. I guess the term is bisexual, I never thought about it too hard. So, maybe, maybe that makes it safer for you here, in this room, Foggy. 'Cause we're the same, I think."

Foggy has stopped crying but he's quiet for a long time. "But, when we met, you said—You implied that you didn't, you weren't…"

Matt turns his face towards the ground. "Well, I wasn't… I hadn't _acted_ upon it yet. At the time, I mean. And I was still a bit in denial about it myself and, don't take this wrong Foggy, but I wasn't sure I'd be comfortable living with someone who found me attractive in that sense. Not because I'd think they'd _do_ something but just that it might be uncomfortable. I didn't know you yet, I was keeping my guard up. I never meant to hurt you. I know you now, I know you'd never do anything without consent, and I'm not stupid. I understand that being attracted to men doesn't necessarily mean you're attracted to me."

"Oh," Foggy says and there's such a mixture of hope and hurt in his voice.

Matt's heart is in his throat. He's so close – telling the truth but not the full truth.

Lying through the omission.

"Then again," Matt says. "That's sort of become another pot and kettle situation."

Foggy shifts forward on his bed a little but doesn't stand up. "What?" he asks, his voice more breath than anything.

And, fuck it, Matt's probably gonna need to go ahead and request a new roommate. Cause he's gonna say it, he's really gonna fucking say it and Foggy is gonna turn him down because Foggy might think he's cute or hot or some nonsense, but they're just friends and it's gonna ruin their friendship but he suddenly can't help himself. He's been alone since he was nine years old and he's gone and done the stupidest thing imaginable and fallen in love with his only friend. But it was Foggy who said _no secrets_ so then, no secrets.

"I love you," Matt says. He raises one hand up in some sort of _what are you gonna do about it_ gesture.

It's scary. Those words out there now, for Foggy to make or break him by them.

But it does feel better than saying it to a rose bush.

It feels like letting loose a weight he's had on his back for too long, but also like stepping up to the gallows and dropping the noose over his neck himself.

"I'm in love with you," he says again. "I love everything about you. I love that you are gentle and kind and passionate and caring and silly and I love that you are always yourself and please, Foggy, don't think you need to change a damn thing on my account."

"You," Foggy's voice is thick with disbelief as he repeats it. "You love me?"

Matt's fingers twitch against each other. He feels like he might cry now, but he doesn't, he manages to hold it together. "Yes," he says. "I understand if you… if you want to live with someone else. Someone without a stupid crush on you, but you. You deserve to know."

"You love me," Foggy says and this time it's not a question.

Matt nods. He waits for Foggy to say something else, maybe to get up and leave, he's not sure.

"Were you ever gonna tell me?" Foggy asks.

"I don't know," Matt says and it's not a lie. "I didn't know how you'd react. I don't want to lose you as a friend, Foggy. I don't have anyone like you and I won't—I won't _act_ on it," he says. "Please just don't leave, we can pretend this whole day never happened."

Foggy stands up then, his heart tripping double-time in his chest. "What if I don't want to pretend today didn't happen?"

Matt nods. "Okay then," he says, swallowing around the lump in his throat, the sudden pain in his chest. "You don't have to."

Foggy's moving towards him, slowly, like he's afraid he'll spook Matt or something. "What if I want you to act on it?" he asks.

There's crushed paper in his mind, an old man telling him he's not worth his time and his father dead behind their home and then there's Foggy's hand on his shoulder and Foggy's so close he can smell his breath and the two feelings are folding up in on each other. Being worthless and worth something and Foggy isn't turning him down.

" _Matt_ ," he says, so close Matt can feel the heat off his body, hear the shift of his long hair against his shirt. "I think you should kiss me. If you want," Foggy says and that's what seals it – that little push for consent. This beautiful bastard who doesn't wanna hurt anyone, who won't even watch porn and made sure Matt wasn't alone on Christmas and is asking for a kiss.

Matt nods, and smiles and says, "I do want, very much."

Foggy's grinning, Matt's sure of it. He puts one hand on Matt's face – gentle, like Matt is delicate, but not because he's disabled, but because he's _precious_ , because he's priceless, and then Foggy leans in, but not all the way. An offer, a halfway point.

Matt is more than delighted to meet him there, slides gracefully in and their lips touch and for a moment – it's everything. There's no noise and no world on fire and no darkness, there is just Foggy and Foggy's lips on his and Foggy's hands on him and the smell and taste and feel of him, their bodies pressing together.

He's not sure who grabs who first, but then they each have handfuls of clothing and are tugging each other as close as they can get, their legs tangled up in the other's, swaying dangerously on their feet as they kiss and kiss and kiss.

"Foggy," Matt breathes when they part, petting his face gently with his fingertips.

Foggy has the biggest grin. Face-splitting. It feels good under Matt's hands, real and warm and it's bursting in his chest to know he did that, fuck, _he_ did that.

Foggy has a hand on Matt's lower back, keeping him close, pressed up against him.

"I love you," Foggy says and it sounds like a prayer from a nonbeliever – desperate and hopeful, a single lifeline in the dark. "You fool, I've loved you a long time."

Matt leans in to kiss him again, nibbles down his jaw a little, enjoys the way it makes Foggy's knees quake and his hips twitch. "How long?" he breathes into Foggy's ear.

"Since the night you walked me home drunk," Foggy says.

"That was ages ago."

Foggy nods under Matt's fingertips.

"Fuck," Matt says.

"When did you… When did you know?"

Matt shrugs a little. "Since you picked me up off the floor? Took me home for Christmas? I don't actually know, Foggy. I just knew."

Foggy nuzzles his face into Matt's neck, his hands still clinging like it's not quite real. "Good enough for me," he says.

They kiss some more and eventually settle down atop Matt's bed but don't do anything other than kiss just yet. They're getting used to this, to it being real, to love being returned. Matt can't get enough of being able to touch Foggy – feel the soft curves of him and the sharp lines of his bones, the silky texture of his hair and the vibration of his voice in his throat.

As much as his world on fire reveals, there is still so much he can't see and getting to map out Foggy's body with his hands is like being liberated from a long night.

Foggy gives as good as he gets, the gentle way he tips Matt's head back to kiss him, his hands on Matt's jaw, his fingers nimble, carding through Matt's hair so carefully, so carefully.

After dark, they're still tangled together. Foggy slumped down a little to rest his head on Matt's chest, one arm across his stomach and Matt's arm over Foggy's shoulders.

Matt's dozing a bit, enjoying the moment, the warmth, the way their breathing has fallen into sync. He doesn't know that he's ever been this content, or if he has, it's been so long he can't remember.

"I really was pantsless behind the bleachers," Foggy says out of the blue.

"Hmm?" Matt asks, waking up a little.

"The night you walked me home. The night I was drunk and you rescued me. I never answered you."

"Oh?" Matt asks, not really sure where this is coming from but he can hear and _feel_ Foggy's heart thundering in his chest.

"Yeah," Foggy says. "I. Uh. There was this guy," he says. "Jock, popular, on the swim team. Gay. He was gay and pretending he wasn't," Foggy explains with a little shrug. "Which I didn't hold against him. I didn't advertise that I was, ya know, not straight myself. It was high school."

Matt hums his ascent and rubs Foggy's shoulder a little.

"We – to this day, I'm not sure how it started happening, but it did – we started fooling around. But it didn't feel just like fooling around. We weren't just having sex, he made me feel," Foggy shakes his head. "Like I was something, important or something. We'd stay up late at night talking and when it was just us, it didn't seem to matter that I'm, well, _this_ ," he says and Matt can feel the blush working his way up and over his body. "Nerdy and pudgy and socially awkward."

"Foggy," Matt tries to say but Foggy shakes his head and Matt knows to let him say whatever it is he needs to say.

"At school, we'd pretend not to know each other. I had my geeky friends and he had his jock friends and it was all very clandestine and sometimes we'd sneak off during our study periods and find somewhere to make out or fool around. Stupid teenage stuff."

Foggy's quiet for a moment like he doesn't want to finish the story, but Matt already knows where this is going.

"We got caught. It was like something out of a terrible teen-flick. He'd just gotten me out of my pants and we were under the bleachers in the gym and we got caught by the drill team coming into practice and he just… stepped back and played the whole thing off like a joke that he'd set up. Pretended he set me up for that moment of humiliation. Laughed at me along with the drill team and it was around campus before the end of the day.

"He tried to apologize to me later. Gave me some bullshit about being unable to come out of the closet. I wouldn't have any of it. Even took a swing at him, I think. Some of it's a little hazy. I tried not to think about it. It didn't matter, in the end. I was a laughing stock and my friends abandoned me and he ripped my heart out."

"Foggy," Matt breathes, leaning over to kiss his hair. "You didn't deserve any of that."

"I know," Foggy says and Matt can feel the tiniest, saddest smile on his friend's face. "I know I didn't. But. That's why. I was afraid it would be just like that all over again. You would see me with a guy, get uncomfortable and leave me."

"Never," Matt says. "Never, never, never. Even if I wasn't – even if we _didn't_ – you're my friend, Foggy. I know you. You would never mistreat me."

Foggy huffs a tiny laugh, warm and gentle across Matt's jaw. "Yeah, you're right. God, you're such a sap. But I love it, don't change. I'm sorry, I was just so afraid that you'd be uncomfortable that I wasn't straight and want to move out and I'd lose my friends again. I'm no stranger to being the butt of a joke, it was them abandoning me that almost did me in, you know?"

"Then they weren't your friends," Matt says. "Friends wouldn't do that to you."

Foggy's voice is thick in his throat, all that old hurt resurfacing. "That's the thing though, till that moment, they certainly felt like my friends."

Matt rolls over a little, pressing his face into Foggy's hair. "I promise, I'll never treat you like that."

Foggy tucks his nose alongside Matt's, threads their fingers together. He doesn't speak but Matt can hear his heart, it's steady thrum of happiness, the way Foggy shifts into him.

They're going to be all right.


	2. Remember when you lost your shit

**Part II: Remember when you lost your shit**

It's the stupidest argument they've ever had and Foggy knows it but he can't help it. He's so hurt, but not too much to recognize that his pain is irrational but too much to stop himself from bulldozing straight ahead.

"If you're gonna break up with me, I wish you would just come right out and do it," he says. "You've never been the one to dance around things, Matt."

He's not crying yet, but damn near close to it, standing over Matt in their mostly-packed up bedroom while Matt sits on their bare mattress.

Earlier this week, they both graduated from law school. They'd been living in cramped quarters in a shitty apartment with another couple and tomorrow, the lease is up.

The chaos of the end of law school and their internships had caused them to both push aside finding a new place till it was too late and Foggy was going to put them both up in his parent's place during the search for somewhere cheap to live while they struggled to get their own practice started.

Then, while they were packing to take their things to Foggy's parent's place, Matt had sat down and said, "I think we should get separate places."

Needless to say, Foggy froze and said, "What?"

Matt is still trying to explain. "It's important to me to live on my own for once in my life."

"Is this… Did I do something?"

"No," Matt says, shaking his head. "This has nothing to do with you."

Foggy knows Matt can't see his perplexed face but can't come up with words for a moment. "Wanting to live without me has nothing to do with me?" he clarifies.

"I know how this sounds," Matt continues, as carefully as he can. "But I want to try living on my own. I've always been around people and I just want to know that I can be self-sufficient. I lived with my father, then in the orphanage and then there was college and law school. Foggy, I'm not… I'm not trying to hurt you or drive a wedge between us or something, I just want to know for sure that I would be okay on my own."

"You're perfectly self-sufficient, Matt," Foggy says. "You make it sound like I tie your shoes for you and wipe your ass and make sure you eat. You need to take on the burden of an entire apartment and all its bills alone just to prove you're not some damn cripple? Aren't you a little above that?"

"Foggy," Matt says, he's doing that thing where he twitches his hand, fidgets with his clothing. "Foggy, it's… It's okay if you don't understand. I'm not trying to hurt you, I'm trying to do something that is important to me. We'll still be _us_. We'll still be a couple, okay? This isn't a break up. It's a test for me."

"Yeah?" Foggy says, he sounds less angry now but still upset. "What are you trying to prove?"

"That I'd be okay on my own. Because you never know, Foggy, I hate to say it. You never know. Something could happen to you," he says, his voice so full of fear at the idea that Foggy's heart twinges tight. "Wouldn't you feel better knowing that I can take care of myself without you? At least, if I need help now, you're a phone call away. Who knows what the future will hold. That might not always be true."

That's what saps the anger out of Foggy. His shoulders slump.

"I'm not happy about it," he says, sitting next to Matt. "But, okay, do what you need to do. Leave the nest, little bird."

Matt smiles, fumbling out his hand for Foggy's. "Thanks."

"Odd thing to thank me for," Foggy says.

Matt just hums and leans in for a kiss.

"Do I get to help you move at least?"

XxX

There are some unexpected perks to not living with Matt.

The three p.m. phone call Foggy gets as soon as he gets home is a little unexpected. Him and Matt have plans that evening, Matt rarely calls unless there's been a change of plans.

"Hey Matty, what's up?" Foggy asks, standing in front of his open refrigerator. He's not looking for food, his shitty apartment (all he could afford on his own) has unreliable A/C and he's damn near sweating his face off in the New York heat.

Across the line, Matt hums a little and then he says, "What are you wearing?" The words drawn out, sugary like warm molasses.

Foggy's whole brain fizzles for a moment. This is unlike any phone call he's received from Matt before. "What kind of question is that?" he blurts out.

Matt lets out a tiny frustrated noise and tries again, a little more forcefully. "Foggy, what are you wearing?"

It clicks and Foggy feels his face burn hot red even as the refrigerator wafts cold air onto him. "Are you really… are we really…?" Foggy asks.

Matt sighs. "We would if you would play along."

"But you can't see what I'm wearing even when we're in the same room, why would you lead with that question?"

"Should I just hang up?" Matt asks and Foggy can hear that little edge to his voice he gets sometimes when he's unsure about something but trying not to let it show. Matt rarely lets his guard down – Foggy's always been flattered that Matt does with him.

"No, no, no," Foggy says, closing the refrigerator door and leaning back against the cool metal of it. Might as well get into this. "Uh. Jeans – the ratty pair with the holes in the knees that I keep around only to do favors that involve manual labor. And uh," Foggy clears his throat, he feels really awkward, hot all over. "An old Columbia t-shirt. The one with the hole under the arm. Was helping Mom earlier-," he squeezes his eyes shut. Yeah, that's exactly what his boyfriend wants to hear, anything about his mother while trying to have phone sex.

But Matt glazes over that part, hums a little bit in appreciation. "I like that one," he says. "It's soft. And it's loose, easy to pull over your head," he says.

Shit. Foggy needs to sit down. "Yeah," he agrees, still not confident enough for this. "What are you, what are you wearing?" he tries instead.

Matt sounds confident though, the way he says, "Just my boxers. Actually, I think they might be yours. The pair you left the other night. I was just sitting here, thinking of you and decided to give you a call. All day I've been thinking about last week, when you spent the night."

"Yeah?" Foggy breathes into the phone. Shit, Matt's voice is silky sweet, pushed down into a slightly deeper timber than usual and it lights down Foggy's spine like electricity.

"My pillowcase still smells like your shampoo," Matt says. "I've been sleeping with it all week. Makes me wake up aching, wake up missing you, fall asleep missing you."

Foggy looks down at his hand on his knee, the flayed edges of his jeans, he doesn't feel so hot now. "I miss you too," he says, feeling ridiculous because Matt's only a few blocks away but it's completely different from having him on the other half of the mattress.

Matt sighs down the line, the mood lost. "I'm sorry."

"It's okay," Foggy replies. They've had the argument one too many times. All the way up the stairs the day they moved Matt in, standing underneath that ridiculous light-up billboard looming over his living room, every time Foggy crashes there and doesn't have his toothbrush or a clean change of clothes.

He's sick of it.

"You want to try again?" Matt asks.

"No," Foggy says. "I want you to come over." He doesn't say the part where he wants Matt to _stay_ over for the foreseeable future and beyond. He's getting better at picking his battles when it comes to Matt.

"I'd have to put my pants back on to do that," Matt drawls, and somehow, he's done it – brought the mood right back.

"What a shame that would be," Foggy says, letting the good feeling sink back into him and wash the negativity out.

"Hm. What a shame indeed," Matt purrs down the line.

XxX

He'll give Matt that – there is something exciting about not living together. They never did court quite right.

It was strange, getting ready for their first "official" date in the same fucking dorm room. Bumping into each other and smiling to each other and Foggy leaning over and pulling a shirt out of Matt's hands while distracting him with a kiss.

"Not the white one, the black one," he'd said and swapped them out.

Matt had blushed and grinned and said, "Okay," and Foggy had leaned back against the pillows on his bed and put his hands behind his head and watched as Matt slowly stripped out of his t-shirt, revealing those fucking muscles he goes to the gym every day to keep and then slowly tugging on an undershirt.

"Or you could just go like that," Foggy said. "That's a good look on you."

"You'd like that," Matt said, turning his face towards Foggy, hair flopping into his unfocused eyes.

"I would," Foggy replied.

"Shame, don't think the restaurant I'm taking you to would approve," Matt said, slowly putting his arms through the black button up, turning to face Foggy completely and carefully doing up each button, slowly, the nimbleness of his fingers a tease in and of themselves.

"Shame it doesn't matter what I wear, I clean up nice."

"I'm sure you do," Matt said. "I never date slouches. And it does matter. Wear the soft one. I think you said it was green."

Foggy clucked his tongue. "That's what it is with you – I need to make sure my clothing is soft."

Matt smiled even wider, doing up the last button. "Surefire way to make sure I can't keep my hands off you all night."

"Say no more," Foggy said.

But now, now that they're living apart for the first time, it's a bit more traditional. He gets to pick Matt up – or get picked up – and they go out on dates or stay in. They don't always spend the night, but sometimes.

It means Foggy gets to show up with flowers. Roses, this time.

Matt prefers carnations. Says he thinks they feel curious, so many petals all packed in together. Foggy once watched Matt delicately trace a bouquet of wildflowers on a table at a wedding they were both invited to for nearly ten minutes and after that, started bringing him flowers on rare occasion.

Admittedly, he's been doing it a little bit more often lately. Because… Because Matt likes them and he misses Matt and Matt's apartment is a little bare.

(Foggy's secretly already picked out where he's hanging his _Blade Runner_ poster. Matt can't see it so Matt can't scoff at it. The light of the billboard doesn't bother Foggy as much as it probably should and he's itching for Matt to give him the go ahead to move his stuff in and cancel the lease on his matchbox sized apartment.)

Matt does have pants on by the time Foggy comes by (darn) but he takes the roses from Foggy with a careful smile. The kind Foggy rarely sees. The kind that means Matt's especially pleased.

Foggy helps him put the roses in a vase, set out on the counter where Matt runs his fingers delicately over every flower, every petal.

"They always say to stop and smell the flowers. I get the one idiot who has to stop and touch them," Foggy says. He loves it though, reminds him of the day they moved out of the dorms and Matt had stood outside with one hand curled through Foggy's arm and his free hand slowly feeling out the flowers on one of the rose bushes that lined the walk. It's one of Foggy's favorite memories of Matt, the tiny smile he had, like they were in on some big secret together – them and the roses – and how it felt like Matt was teaching him to see the world in ways he had never considered before.

"Then you could stop bringing them," Matt replies, the curve of his finger smoothing over the top of a still mostly closed bud.

"Never," Foggy says, fake aghast, and leans in to kiss Matt on the cheek.

"What color are they?" Matt asks.

"Pink, dark pink. Like the ones on campus – by our dorms. You remember?" he asks and instantly feels stupid because Matt couldn't see those roses just like he can't see these ones.

But Matt makes a happy little humming sound anyways. "I remember. Well, I remember you being awkward and fumbly and describing them to me freshmen year," he says, turning his face towards Foggy with a grin this time. "And every year after," he adds.

"Yeah, well," Foggy says, suddenly bashful. "Someone's got to do the seeing in this relationship."

There's a long, long moment where Matt falls silent with his fingertips against one flower and he's got a look on his face like he's thinking a little bit too hard for the moment.

Foggy slips up behind him, puts his hands around Matt's waist and carefully kisses his neck.

In spite of everything, he still can't believe he gets to have this.

XxX

Most of the time they fuck.

Sometimes, they make love.

Foggy had never really thought there was that much of a distinction before. Sex was never something he took wholly lightly, but also not a thing he took completely seriously. He always found there was a fine line to walk between it being a declaration of love and it just being a feel-good way to pass the time.

It's always been different with Matt though.

Foggy suspects it's because he's blind.

Sometimes Matt just wants to get off, and it's hard and frantic and partially dressed and Matt just ruins him in the best ways possible. He knows Foggy's body and exactly how to get him off, get them both off, and it's like being wrecked.

He's never had anyone take him apart like that before.

But sometimes, sometimes it's like Matt wants to see him, wants to know him in a way no one has. Gets him naked on his bed and carefully runs his hands over him, all of him. The backs of his knees and the rough skin behind his elbow, the curve of his stomach, the hair below his navel, the shell of his ear and the dip in his spine.

It's reverent, the way he imagines Matt prays.

It's intense too. How wise Matt is, such a clever boy, and to have the entirety of that man focused on him is a bit intimidating at times. Watching the minute twitches of Matt's eyebrows and mouth as he makes a mental picture of Foggy with his hands.

It's a whole different way of being laid out before a lover. He's always been the slightest bit shy about his body, even though he tries not to be, and the first time Matt did it, he thought he was going to pass out from nervousness. But now, now when Matt takes his time to see Foggy all over again, it's oddly relaxing but still, somehow, a surefire way to get Foggy desperate and aching.

Sometimes he'll ask Foggy to describe things to him. "Tell me what color your eyes are," he'll say. Even though he knows, even though Foggy's described them for Matt before.

Or, his favorite, when Matt puts his hand on the middle of Foggy's chest and says, "Tell me you love me."

It's like some strange drug to him – to _feel_ Foggy say it.

"I love you," he'll say.

And Matt's mouth will give a little twitch and he'll say, "Again."

"I love you."

And then they'll be kissing, messy, tangled up in each other, Foggy breaking them apart just enough to say it again and again and again.

"I love you. I love you. I love you."

Matt's hand so gentle on his face when he comes, feeling the parting of his lips, the tensing of his eyes, the bowstring stretch of his neck.

It's so good.

It's like nothing else.

Foggy wants to drown in it, in Matt, wants it to be this way forever.

XxX

There's an extra toothbrush on the counter in Matt's bathroom.

"I know it's not… It doesn't _solve_ ," Matt says from the doorway, he's fidgeting with his hands and he doesn't finish the thought.

Foggy's still a little weak in the knees. He's always like that afterwards. It's dark and raining and Matt spent so long rocking his world, it's too late to head home.

He smiles anyways, it's bittersweet and he's a little glad Matt can't see it. He takes the wrapping off the toothbrush with a tiny snort.

"It's pink," he says.

Matt rubs at the back of his neck. "Sorry."

Foggy smiles for real this time, it's still small though. "I don't ascribe to the gendering of colors," Foggy says.

Matt smiles back at him. "I didn't think so."

"Are you just gonna stand there and listen to me brush my teeth?" Foggy asks.

Matt shrugs. "I like the sounds of you just… being here."

Foggy runs the brush under the tap and tries to avoiding falling into this argument again.

He knows, he _knows_ , if he keeps picking at it – Matt's gonna make his worst fear come true. Besides he knows, logically, that Matt's right – it has nothing to do with him. Matt deserves to prove to _himself_ whatever it is that he needs to prove to himself.

And Foggy is his boyfriend (holy shit, he's never getting used to that word, the way it makes him feel hot and cold and tingly all at once) and it's his job or responsibility or something to love Matt no matter what, to love him through this and be supportive of decisions that he makes to better himself.

But he's still hurt and every month he barely makes rent and has to spend a week living off canned soup because rent on your own is fucking expensive, and every day he gets up alone, he feels so frustrated and wounded all over again.

"My mom," Foggy says with a tiny sigh, "She thinks us living separately is a sign that we're gonna break up."

"I know," Matt says.

"I think she's hoping that we will and that I will realize that I'm not bi and that I'll go back to dating nice young women and bring her home some pretty girl she can dote on and beg for grandbabies and manipulate into making me a better man.

"She thinks this is," he gestures from himself to Matt, "is me just being _confused_. She says I always was a little bit protective and she thinks I feel _protective_ of you because you're _blind_ and I just am expressing those feelings in the wrong way.

"But. I'm not, I know I'm not."

"I know, Foggy," Matt says, his voice damn near silent.

"I love you," Foggy says, this time not even looking at Matt, looking down at the water droplets in the sink. "And this is it, for me, this. I don't want some perfect woman, and I don't think I want babies or any of that cookie cutter stuff I grew up with, the stuff my mom thinks all Nelsons should want or whatever.

"I want you and I want to save the world with you once we get our little practice on it's feet and I hate this, Matt. It feels like you've made us suspend ourselves so you can win some macho bet with yourself. You don't need to."

Matt doesn't reply, but he does step into the tiny bathroom and take Foggy's hand with a small fumble, brings it up to his lips and kisses the back of his fingers.

Foggy sighs. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, I am. I support this, whatever it is, and I want to be here, just, don't leave me hanging forever, okay?"

Matt nods, his face still tipped down.

XxX

Most of it was just the last minute-ness of Matt's timing.

Foggy might feel differently – might be able to stop picking at it – if Matt had given him a heads up.

They'd finished out their senior year and quickly moved into that cramped apartment near campus.

They'd let Laura and Patrick have the room that overlooked the street while they took the smaller corner room that's sole window looked onto the brick wall of the building next door.

Matt didn't need a view and Foggy had found himself looking at Matt and saying, "I'll have my view with me."

Laura had laughed and called him a sap but Matt had turned pink to the tips of his ears and only got brighter when Foggy leaned in to kiss him and blow a raspberry on his neck, making Matt squawk and push him away.

They'd spent the first week or so sleeping on the floor. An arrangement that did not agree with Foggy's back or Matt's delicate senses, before they'd scrounged together enough money from their part time jobs to actually go out and buy a bed.

Foggy had been living with Matt for years at that point. He knew the man had a number of peculiarities from his blindness, the way it messed with the rest of his body. Needed things laid out where he could find them, was overly sensitive to touch and hence the soft blankets and silk sheets, that he counted stairs and used the same cups so he didn't have to stick his fingers in them to know when they were full.

So, buying a bed with Matt was its own list of challenges. Nothing too hard or too soft or too squeaky or too high up or too low.

They found themselves spending two days going from furniture store to mattress store to department store and lying down on all the beds, side by side. Matt on the right and Foggy on the left and seeing which fit.

Matt was a bit frustrated, a lot of turning over and groaning and finding an issue with this mattress and that one, but Foggy…

Foggy loved it.

Loved the way their arms brushed as they flopped down, imagined each test run as a night he would spend next to Matt and every time they got up again, a morning with him.

Imagined going to bed and waking up with this man every day for the rest of his life like the head-over-heels fool that he was.

Until they found something perfect and then picked out sheets – two sets, both silk for Matt but one green and one blue, the colors just for Foggy.

The same adventure again but for pillows and Foggy found himself standing in an aisle watching Matt squeeze pillows with an oddly thoughtful look on his face and thinking that this is what home must really feel like, that loving anyone else had just been practice for loving Matt and hating himself just a little for that.

There was a definition in that moment to Foggy. He knew he loved Matt when Matt walked him home drunk from the bar that night, but that moment, watching Matt trace the seams on a down pillow with one fingertip – he knew that this was it. It was Matt or it was nobody.

All he could do was hope that it was the same for Matt.

XxX

Sometimes Matt would sit up and listen to the city at night.

Foggy remembers turning over on that bed they picked out and not finding Matt asleep beside him, but sitting up with his arms draped over his knees and his unfocused gaze turned towards the window.

He was silhouetted in the muted light pollution of the city at night, like a dark-blue figure pressed against the black.

Foggy would sit up with him, run his hand down the tense curve of Matt's back, kiss him between his shoulder blades.

Sometimes, it was like Matt had some private place he wandered off to, some secret garden where truths of the world were unfurled before him, but he never talked about it.

And he never took Foggy along.

"Can't sleep?" Foggy would ask.

Matt would nod and say, "Too noisy."

Beneath them, above them, beside them and all around them, New York hummed with life all through the night.

XxX

That's why it hurt the way it did.

Matt took ages to pick out pillows and mattresses and shoes and sometimes even his fucking dinner.

Which meant he knew. He knew before he sprang it on Foggy, he knew for _weeks_ , possibly even _months_ beforehand.

And he said nothing.

He just helped Foggy pack up their room and the closet they shared and take the blue silk sheets off their bed and everything was in cardboard and Mrs. Nelson had very, very begrudgingly agreed to let them stay in her home while they hunted for a place to live and that was when Matt sprung that on him.

Piled onto the knowledge that Matt was never going to confess to him, never tell Foggy how he felt had he not walked in on Foggy that night…

 _I'm sick of the secrets_ , he wanted to say.

19-year-old Foggy in that dorm room, feeling like he was getting a second chance at life, wasn't gonna screw this up and meeting his beautiful, heroic roommate for the first time and saying _no secrets_.

What a fool he had been.

Matt shifts away from him on the bed – their bed, the one they'd picked out and Foggy had let Matt keep when they moved out.

He's sound asleep. He doesn't always sleep, but tonight, Foggy fucked him half way into oblivion and he passed right out.

He shifts over to rest his hand – gently, slowly – on Matt's back, feels the slow shift of his breathing.

He thinks it wouldn't be so bad if Matt had mentioned it first, when it first occurred to him, instead of waiting so long.

He gets up, restless, annoyed.

Doesn't want to wake Matt. Goes to the kitchen and the roses are on the countertop, only half of them in bloom.

The toothbrush on the sink in the bathroom, a handful of Foggy's clothes in Matt's closet and none of the inverse.

He pulls his clothes back on quietly and goes home.

XxX

Coming out had… sucked.

"You've been sleeping with boys since you were sixteen," Matt said, holding his cane between his legs in the backseat of the taxi.

Foggy couldn't sit still. Kept shifting restlessly between the window and Matt.

" _She_ doesn't know that. And don't, don't tell her that," Foggy snapped and then immediately felt bad. "Sorry. I just. They're good people."

Matt hummed and leaned into Foggy a little. " _You're_ good people," Matt said.

Foggy pushed him off him just a little. "Just. Don't say anything weird in front of them."

"Foggy, I've spent every Christmas with you for the past four years."

"Thanks," Foggy replied dryly. "Now my mom is going to wonder if we've been banging under her roof for the last four years."

Matt threw his head back and Foggy knew he was rolling his eyes behind those dark lensed glasses.

It was the only time Foggy had been the tiniest – _tiniest_ – bit jealous of Matt for being an orphan. He had no one to come out to. It was all just Foggy.

Matt held his hand the whole time, standing in his kitchen while Mr. and Mrs. Nelson sat at the kitchen table. Foggy's father with his mouth set tight and Mrs. Nelson looking vaguely confused through the whole thing.

"You're moving in together?" Mrs. Nelson had asked with a little disdain in her voice.

Foggy nodded. Matt squeezed his hand and said nothing.

"You've been dating since…?" Mrs. Nelson asked.

"Just — just a couple of months," Foggy replied.

"But you've been gay since when?"

"It's okay," Matt whispered when he felt Foggy stiffen up.

"Not gay," Foggy said. "Bisexual. I've known since high school."

"Hm," Mrs. Nelson said. "Bisexual," she repeated, like she had to try the word out for herself. "So you like boys and girls?"

Foggy nodded, his face hot.

"Well then," his mother said. A beat of silence. "You love this boy?"

"She's, uh, she's talking to you," Foggy clarified, nudging Matt carefully where their elbows were pressed together.

"Yes ma'am," Matt said, his voice sounded like his throat was dry. "Very much."

Mrs. Nelson scratched the back of her arm, the dry skin making a rasping sound. "I'm not gonna say I'm happy about it but," she shrugged. "I like to see my son happy," she said. "You keep him happy," she addressed Matt. "I might get over it."

"I'll do my best," Matt promised.

XxX

"You're escaping in the middle of the night now?" Matt asks, his voice gravely down the line, the way it is first thing in the morning, before he's even so much as gotten out of bed.

Foggy tries not to hit his head on the sink he's helping his uncle fix – he's been helping out various family members with their various jobs for petty cash to get _Nelson and Murdock, Attorneys at Law_ on it's feet.

"Yeah, I had uh," Foggy says, giving up on sitting up and just laying his head down inside the cabinet in exasperation. "A thing," he says.

"A thing?"

"Got another odd job, helping my mom out," he explains. "And I was just… restless."

"Foggy," Matt says, a little sharply.

"Yeah?"

"I love you," Matt says.

Foggy's glad no one can see him as he blooms red. Problems aside – he's never gonna get over Matt saying that. Every time feels like the first time. "You do?" he asks.

"Yes, you idiot. I'll see you later?" he asks.

"Yeah, of course."

XxX

They meet up at Josie's bar – two nights later – 8 o'clock sharp.

Foggy goes to lean in for a kiss when he sees it – the bruises on Matt's face and furry whips through him, white hot and burning.

"Matt, what happened?"

Matt straightens a little from where he was tipped forward – expecting a kiss hello – and shrugs, "I tripped," he says with a self-deprecating shrug. "I'm fine."

But Foggy's not so sure, thinks about picking Matt up off the floor freshmen year and taking him back to their room.

Still. Matt does seem okay now and Foggy's determined not to push the issue anymore. Lately, it feels like they talk about – or very carefully _don't_ talk about – Matt moving out more than anything else. They're trying to start a business together. They're going to change the world, so Foggy lets it go. He's got a couple extra hundred scrounged up from a long weekend of manual labor (breaking from the Nelson norms is going slowly for Foggy) and they've got an appointment tomorrow to look at some office spaces for their practice. He feels good. It feels like they're making progress, closer to their dream than ever before.

But a drink later, curiosity gets the best of him. "You tripped?" Foggy asks.

"Yeah," Matt says with a tiny fidget. "Taking out the trash. Sometimes my coordination isn't all that. Hard to juggle smelly trash bags and a cane and navigate stairs," he admits.

"Was it like that… that one time? In college?" Foggy asks, unable to repress the image of Matt helpless somewhere where anything could happen to him and Foggy having no idea, blocks away.

But Matt just shakes his head. "No, nothing like that, just an accident," he says, something warm and fond inside his voicing putting Foggy at ease.

"You're such a mess," Foggy says and finally does kiss him.

Matt turns a little pink. "I'm not that bad," he says.

"I worry about you, that's all I'm saying," Foggy says, pulling out a napkin to sketch on. He can't wait to tell Matt he's got a few extra bucks to put to the practice. He can't wait to find a place to set up shop and get on with the rest of their lives.

He can't wait for Matt to finally deem himself competent enough to live alone and invite Foggy into his apartment. Foggy tries not to think about how Matt falling taking out the trash is probably a setback in that endeavor.

It'll be okay. He'll distract himself with the opening of the practice. They'll find other things to argue about – matte or gloss on their business cards or something. If they can afford business cards.

"Foggy, I'm fine," Matt insists. It's not the edge of an argument, the way they so often are nowadays, he's smiling.

"Don't look fine," Josie says, leaning over to refill their drinks.

"See, Josie's worried about you too," Foggy says.

"I wouldn't go that far," she says, walking off.

"You gotta be more careful," Foggy says, staring down at his sketch, he's debating writing _Murdock and Murdock, Attorneys at Law_ instead of _Nelson and Murdock_. It's not like Matt is gonna see it anyways.

"I know, I know," Matt says, setting his glass down.

"Tripping and falling, taking out the trash," Foggy says with a little laugh. "You gotta get someone to do that for you," he suggests. He doesn't follow it through with _me, it should be me, I should be there taking care of you—_

They're not going to argue tonight. They're not. Foggy knows better. He's not killing this good mood. Even Matt seems unusually upbeat.

"Come on, I just need to be more careful, like you said," Matt says. He's beaming. This is the beautiful idiot Foggy fell in love with.

Foggy leans back, finishing his bar napkin masterpiece. "Done," he says. "Run your feelers over this little beauty," he orders, handing the napkin to Matt.

"What is it, a napkin?" Matt asks, a gentle look of concentration on his face.

"No, my friend, this is our future," Foggy says.

"Huh," Matt says simply. "Feels like a napkin."

"It's a drawing of a sign," Foggy explains. " _Nelson and Murdock, Attorneys at Law_ ," he says, stamping down the eager part of him that wants Matt to say something terribly sappy like _don't you mean Nelson and Nelson?_ Or _Murdock and Murdock_? Foggy's not actually terribly picky. He just knows he doesn't want a hyphen but wants them to have the same name. Because. Because he likes the cohesion of it, the solidarity of it, gets a little fuzzy at the idea of being able to call Matt "Mr. Murdock," in bed like Mr. Darcy to his wife at the end of _Pride and Prejudice._ Hell, at this point, they could pick some totally different, unrelated name out of a hat and he would be just fine with it.

As long as Matt was fucking his, once and for all, Foggy doesn't care.

Matt nods, like he gets it, casting his blind gaze down at the scribbled drawing.

"You, uh, you really wanna do this?" Matt asks.

Something inside Foggy sinks a little. Yeah, maybe once he cared a bit more about money, about having a nice place to live and being able to make sure his parents were taken care of, and maybe setting aside a little nest-egg to start a family with someone not Marci. And it's not that those things have fallen away, but that the singular focus of Matt's righteous mind has made Foggy reconsider what he puts first and what kind of work he wants to do with his law degree and with his life.

He didn't steal all those bagels and move into a crawlspace of an apartment to back out now.

And he didn't spend every recent day doing whatever odd jobs the contractors and plumbers and painters and fucking butchers of his family could find for him to do, to save up enough petty cash for three months rent in a decent office building to back out now.

But he doesn't say that. Instead he keeps joking, keeps the mood light and says, "No, I'm pissing my pants," instead, "there's actual urine in my trousers."

Matt laughs and that's fucking _it_ – that right there. Sometimes, it's better than sex. Better than any of the other noises Foggy knows how to make him make. Matt Murdock believing that there could be something good in the world gives Foggy life. Especially when he knows that Matt believes there is something good left in the world because of him.

"I trust you," Foggy says, and that's the real reason he walked out on that job with that box full of bagels and called up his father that night to ask the extended Nelson clan for a favor. "If you think this is what we should be doing, than I'm with you," Foggy says.

And he can't help it, because, fuck – it's so much more than just the job, it's Matt, it's everything. He wants this man in every and anyway he can have him so much it's killing him.

"For better or worse," he says. Afraid – damn it, that's what this is – he's afraid he'll never be able to say it again, in the context that he wants.

Matt giggles and Foggy pretends that doesn't hurt. Water off a duck's back, he's _used_ to this by now. "Sounds like we're getting married," Matt says.

"Hey," Foggy says, finding his voice climbing a bit louder than he meant. "This is way more important than a civil union," he says and his heart knocks against his ribcage as he tries to make himself believe it. "Come on, we're gonna be business partners. We're gonna share everything with each other, our thoughts, our dreams, bills," he says, hoping it's all still true. "Crushing debt," he adds because he probably won't have time to do favors for the rest of the Nelsons once they get their practice started.

Matt's lighthearted but sincere when he says, "There is no one I would rather be doing this with, buddy. Seriously."

"Me, too, pal," Foggy replies and something inside of him breathes a rather melancholy sigh of relief that even if Matt decides they are over as a couple, he'll still have Matt in this one capacity.

Besides, _Nelson and Murdock_ doesn't sound so bad coming out of Matt's mouth.

XxX

They find an office and Matt waits till they're alone to pull Foggy into a hug, pressing his face into Foggy's hair for a moment before asking, "Where did you get the money?"

Foggy is too caught up in the feel of Matt's body pressed along his, of Matt relaxed inside his arms to answer at first. "Odd jobs, here and there. You know, plumbing, plastering, helped some people move."

Matt steps back a little, he's still got a hand on Foggy though. "You didn't… you didn't tell me you were doing that."

Foggy shrugs a little. "It didn't seem important."

"Foggy," Matt breathes. He sounds a little hurt but before he can say anything else, Foggy interrupts him.

"Hey, I don't have enough for the sign yet, but we have to announce our presence somehow."

"I don't think having loud sex in an office building is really the way you want our neighbors to get to know us," Matt says.

Foggy chokes for a second, honest to goodness _chokes_. "That's not… That is not what I was suggesting!"

Matt just smiles at him, shit-eating grin practically purring.

"Screw you," Foggy says shifting around to pull a blank, white folder out of a box.

"Later," Matt says and Foggy pauses a little to enjoy the sincerity with which he said it.

"Okay, I'm holding you too that," Foggy says.

"I'm counting on it."

"But seriously, what I meant was, my shitty handwriting is gonna have to tide us over till, you know, we get a case and some money to get a real sign," he says scrawling _Nelson and Murdock, Attorneys at Law_ across the folder.

It's a bit slanted and cramped, but, hey, it works. It's legible. That's what is important.

"Unless you think we should go with _your_ shitty handwriting," Foggy says.

Matt shakes his head. "No, that sounds like a surefire way to get _no_ clients while your handwriting will only be next to no clients."

Foggy sticks his tongue out at him, rolls his eyes and says, "I stuck my tongue out at you but the effect of it has been lost by the narration."

Matt burst into a tiny giggle fit and says, "I love you."

Foggy takes a moment to just look at him, drink him in, standing in their office – _their_ office – holding his cane with both hands, wearing a dark red shirt and a nice pair of jeans and smiling like such a doofus at Foggy because of Foggy. He imprints it deep into his memory, something to keep, something to hold onto. Just. In case. Just in case, that's all.

He kisses Matt on the cheek as moves past him to tape the makeshift sign to the door.

Now they're finally ready to take on the world.

XxX

Their little law firm gets its first case and grows by one.

Karen Page is beautiful and smart and eager and kind and all the things Mrs. Nelson would want in a significant other for Foggy so Foggy is careful to make sure his mother never, ever, ever stops by the office.

Matt becomes harder to reach.

He doesn't answer his phone. He's late coming into the office. He doesn't schedule dates with Foggy.

He doesn't _reject_ the ones that Foggy suggests, he shows up. He smiles, he kisses Foggy, he tells him he loves him.

Sometimes it feels rote, broken-record. Habitual like teeth brushing.

They don't make love.

They fuck once in Foggy's office, at night, after Karen's gone home and they've called it a day. Matt sitting with his pants around his knees on Foggy's desk, his shirt and tie still on as Foggy sucks him off, fisting his own cock.

It's over fast – it'd been a while – and Matt does himself back up while Foggy fishes a discarded paper cup out of the trash to spit in, wipes his hand off with a napkin left over from lunch.

It feels clinical, like chore almost, and Matt brushes Foggy off when he tries to help Matt get dressed again.

It hurts. It fucking hurts and he stands there, looking at Matt in the light of Foggy's desk lamp, half doused in shadow, his mouth a little tight, his movements a little stiff as he tucks his shirt in and pulls up his zipper.

Foggy feels like ice is filling his veins, thinks briefly about Captain America in the downed airplane, how it must've hurt, how scary it must've been to feel himself drowning and freezing slowly.

It's not the same, Foggy knows that, but this is what he imagines it would feel like.

Wants Matt to invite him home, wants to sleep curled up against him, wants to pretend it's their first year of law school, when they used to make ridiculous bets for sex.

Highest grade on whatever paper was due gets dealer's choice or boldest argument with sound logic gets "breakfast in bed" or who can name the most statutes before coming…

It was ridiculous. They couldn't keep their hands off each other but they had to study so they made crazy, mostly ill-advised games out of it and there some lawsuits Foggy read about that he still can't think about without getting a little inappropriately hot under the collar.

It's not like that anymore.

Matt comes in late the next day and doesn't kiss him good morning.

Foggy can't remember if it's been mentioned to Karen or not that they're a couple.

He thinks she doesn't know and it's ice all over again.

He doesn't… It's not like…

Matt is direct.

Foggy stands in his office and reminds himself that if Matt wanted to break up, he would just say so.

He would.

Really.

Or not because he doesn't want to ruin his one good friendship and his newly founded business and—

 _Stop it_ , Foggy tells himself but his hands are shaking.

Stop it.

He's determined to push through. Patch up the wounds and ignore the ice and don't let his mother see a crack in the armor and give her the chance to say _I told you so_.

She's a good woman but she still would say it.

XxX

Karen hears him singing.

Foggy has been way beyond being embarrassed since the gym incident in high school.

Besides, he knows his neighbors in law school heard _way more_ embarrassing things through the walls. (His current neighbors – not so much.)

Karen is sweet about it, jokingly mean but Foggy likes her for that. Girl can hold her own.

He takes her drinking. Invites Matt, but Matt doesn't pick up his phone.

Foggy can't believe it still hurts, but, fine, whatever. He's getting drunk with a pretty girl and that's good enough.

She confesses she doesn't wanna go home. The blood and the dent in the wall and all her fears.

Foggy suggests they stay out all night.

He doesn't wanna go home either.

Going home lately feels a little bit like defeat.

XxX

Matt doesn't answer his door when they drunkenly yell for him.

It's worse than all the ignored phone calls. Now Matt is ignoring him _in person_. Well, not _in person_ in person, but still. A wall away, presumably. It might be that they are drunk but…

Foggy's been drunk around Matt before, drunk with Matt, drunkenly made Matt rescue him.

Fuck, he's so screwed. So fucking screwed.

He has a key but…

If Matt doesn't wanna see him than Matt doesn't wanna see him. They leave after waking up his neighbor.

They don't stay out all night. They don't go to the fish market.

Foggy invites Karen back to his place.

"Not like _that_ ," he says, hands up to show her he's not a threat.

She's haloed under a streetlamp, arms crossed and head slightly cocked in disbelief that any man would invite her home for any other than the obvious reason. She's beautiful. She looks like something out of Hopper painting – timeless in her grace, in spite of – or maybe because of – all the booze flowing through her, rouging her cheeks.

"Like uh, like, just for the night, just to sleep, somewhere less…" he bypasses the word _morbid_ and goes for, "less history for you. And we can watch out for each other for the many terrors that lurk through the city."

"I dunno," Karen says, but it sounds half-mocking, like she's considering it. "I'm not so sure about you, Mr. Nelson."

"Hand to God, completely innocent," Foggy promises, actually putting one hand up. "Besides, I'm a happily taken man."

Karen blanches for half a second. Jeeze. Really? She is _that_ surprised?

"You're taken? How come I've never heard of or met this lucky lady?" she asks.

"Lucky?" Foggy says, drawing his eyebrows up. "I have a feeling that you are mocking me, Miss Page."

Karen gives him a gentle punch on the arm, now walking with him towards his apartment so, score. "Oh, come on," she says. "Who is she?"

"Uh, well, first of all, _he_ ," Foggy says and feels more sober than he would like. He looks down at the cracks in the sidewalk passing under his feet as he talks so he doesn't have to see her face.

He hates this part.

Coming out is a lifelong process. It's more than telling your mother. It's constant, never ending revealing himself to friends and family and strangers alike and he hates it, he hates it, he hates it.

"He?" Karen says, her voice suddenly serious. "I never took you as…"

"Yeah. It's the whole slightly greasy, awkward, unfashionable geek thing."

"Foggy," Karen says.

Foggy shakes his head. "It's okay. I understand."

There is a tiny silence before Karen pushes for more. "So, who is he?"

"Oh, you know him," Foggy says, turning them down the street his apartment is on.

"I do?" Karen asks.

Foggy nods and looks at her hard for a moment.

"Matt?"

"Bingo."

"Matt?" she says again.

Disbelief. Fucking awesome. That's how much they've drifted. She doesn't believe he's into dudes, yet alone fucking _dating Matt._

It didn't used to be that way.

Holding hands at a graduation party after their senior year of undergrad and actually watching money change hands in _more than one bet_ like they were the last ones to know, but not feeling embarrassed about it. Just amused. Just happy, leaning over to steal kisses from him again and again and again. Drunk more on the taste of Matt than the shitty, keg beer.

People knew. Exasperated sighs of _finally_ and _about time_ and now…

"But you guys don't seem," Karen starts and then shakes her head. "Sorry, I'm so sorry. The eel took all my tact apparently."

"That must be its power," Foggy says. "It is the great stealer of tact! But, seriously, we're just not into PDA and the whole like opening up a law firm in which your partner is your 'partner' is a little daring. We wanted to keep it low key, just to be on the safe side."

"I suppose that's understandable," Karen says. "So, you're not into women at all?" she asks as they ascend the stairs to Foggy's place. Another thing Foggy is fucking sick of. People assuming the binary.

"I never said that," Foggy replies with a tiny smile. "I like women and men and people who fall somewhere between and nowhere at all, you know. People are awesome, sometimes. Not all of them. Actually, very few of them but that's neither here nor there. I mean," he stops at his door with a sigh.

"There were women and there were men and then there's Matt. And he's…" Foggy just shakes his head but Karen puts her hand on his shoulder.

"He's really something," she says.

Foggy looks at her, like he's seeing her again for the first time, the gentle curl of her hair and the pout of her lips and how fucking sincere she is.

"Yeah," he agrees with a nod. "He's really something."

XxX

Matt comes in with a bruise on his face and won't talk about it.

XxX

Matt comes in with a limp and won't talk about it.

XxX

Matt comes in with a cut on his hand and won't talk about it.

XxX

Matt sits strangely stiff in his chair all day and doesn't remove his coat and won't talk about it.

XxX

Ibid.

XxX

Foggy stops scheduling dates and Matt doesn't pick up the slack.

XxX

Foggy stops going into Matt's office for a hello/good morning kiss and Matt doesn't pick up the slack.

XxX

Matt forgets to say _I love you_ before going home for the night and Foggy doesn't pick up the slack.

XxX

Ibid.

XxX

Sunday dinner at his mother's place and Matt doesn't come along. Really, only comes along about once a month but it's been longer now.

Mrs. Nelson often tries to avoid the topic, like if she doesn't verbally acknowledge the fact that Foggy is in a relationship with another man, Foggy will magically transform into a good, straight little boy for her and Matt will morph into the daughter-in-law of her dreams.

But tonight Foggy isn't really joining in on the conversation, isn't really eating, doesn't make a lot of eye contact. His heart is heavy, his head his heavy. He's so very tired.

"Is your firm doing all right?" Mrs. Nelson asks first.

Foggy nods. "Well, as good as one can hope. We're getting cases, that's the important thing," he says.

She hums a little. "Winning your cases?" she asks.

He shrugs. "More or less."

"And Matt?"

"What about him?" Foggy asks.

"How is he?" she asks, a little too sharply.

"Fine," Foggy says trying to head her off at the pass.

It doesn't work.

"Where is he tonight? I haven't seen him in a while."

Foggy shrugs. He has no idea. He didn't even _try_ to invite Matt along this time.

"Are you boys doing all right?"

"Yeah, of course," Foggy lies but Mrs. Nelson knows him way better than that.

"Does he still make you happy?" she asks.

He looks up from his plate, makes a fucking effort, direct eye contact and all when he says, "Yes."

Mrs. Nelson purses her lips then asks again, "Really?" Only it doesn't feel like a shot at his sexuality but a motherly attempt to tend to her clearly wounded son.

Which is…worse, actually. Being torn up over Matt is making his mother conquer her homophobia and that's not really a road Foggy feels emotionally ready for.

So he stands up. "I'm sorry, I can't do this," he says. "Thank you for a lovely dinner, as always, Mom." He kisses her on the forehead, rinses his dish in the sink and leaves.

XxX

Everything is _fine_ when they're both in the office. Which isn't as often as Foggy thinks it should be but, fine, whatever, fine. It's gonna be fine. At least, that's what he has to keep telling himself.

The fact that Matt needs some space isn't wholly terrible. It's probably healthy. They have spent an unholy amount of time together since freshmen year. Foggy's just gotta keep his head about him.

But it just… It's so hard.

Karen was right about her mistrust of the city. Obvious gang lords trying to strong-arm old women out of their homes for profit. She's got mace on her keychain and sometimes takes long lunches, cuts out of the office at the end of the day in a hurry like she's hiding something from them.

But, still.

Foggy doesn't wanna go home because when they're here, they're Nelson and Murdock and at least Matt's talking to him.

About a case or the Devil of Hell's kitchen or whatever.

He misses him.

But he can't say it, doesn't want to say it, it doesn't need to be said. Matt knows how he feels.

XxX

Hell's Kitchen goes up in flames and Foggy can't get ahold of Matt.

Foggy is _in the hospital_ and can't get ahold of Matt.

Karen calls and calls and calls and no answer.

Foggy tries to stay cool. He really does. Matt is an adult who can take care of himself and not answering phone calls has pretty much become his M.O. as of late so it could be nothing.

But Karen asks, "So you're not worried?"

And fuck. Of course he's worried. Of course he is. He's all kinds of bravado, but that's hard to keep up in current circumstances. Hell's Kitchen is up in flames and Matt – Matt who seems to walk into a lot more walls as of late – is out there somewhere and not answering his fucking _phone_.

Foggy struggles to sit up. "I'm going to go look for him."

"No, no, no, the hell you are," Karen says, hands on him to make him lay back down.

"I'm the closest thing he has to family," Foggy says. "He would do the same for me!"

"I know," Karen says earnestly, she's keeping a hand on Foggy as though meant to convince him to stay in bed. "And I love that about you guys, but don't be an idiot," she insists.

"He's my boyfriend," Foggy says, and those words hurt worse than the wound in his side. He hasn't said them in _so long_ , months, probably. "He's my boyfriend."

"I know," Karen says. "I know. But you're injured and you're here where it's safe and you should keep it that way. Matt wouldn't want you to get more hurt."

Foggy is reluctant but Karen has a point. "Okay," he says.

Karen kisses him on the forehead, a chaste, sisterly thing to do. "I'm going to go check downstairs, see if Matt's been brought in," she says.

Foggy watches her go before pulling out his phone and trying Matt again.

He doesn't answer. Big surprise.

Foggy's mind fills up with fear of all the things that could have happened to him. If he's pinned somewhere and can't get out, or if he got disoriented from the sound of the explosions and simply has a twisted ankle somewhere but is too discombobulated to move.

Fuck.

Or if he's okay, somewhere. Not answering his phone doing whatever the hell it is that Matt does these days, hitting ignore while Foggy is bleeding into stitches.

They never actually said _for better or worse_ but Matt did say he loved him – once, many times – and he should be here, holding Foggy's hand.

That's what lovers do. They look out for each other. They take care of each other.

But, Foggy leans back into the pillows, Matt wanted to take care of himself and Foggy slowly fills with the dread that maybe Matt wants Foggy to take of himself as well.

XxX

After their first year of law school, Foggy borrowed his father's truck – a noisy beast of a machine spit out of a factory in the late 80's – and drove him and Matt out into the countryside.

It was a few weeks after their one year anniversary. Which they didn't have time to celebrate because of finals.

Foggy booked them a room in a chain hotel and then they drove out to nowhere, sat on the tailgate and Foggy described the stars to Matt.

"Didn't see them that much as a kid," Matt confessed. "Light pollution from the city."

"Yeah," Foggy said. "Forget it looks like this sometimes. Makes you feel small. Well, makes me feel small. I have no idea how it makes you feel."

Matt just smirked at him, leaned into him a little. "The darkness… The darkness of when I first went blind - that made me feel small, lost."

Foggy looked at him, watched the way Matt stared straight ahead as he spoke. Telling him those things he never told anyone. Those things he hid away so no one would treat him like glass, like he wasn't capable.

"Repurposing my senses," Matt said. "Made me feel in control again. Sometimes even a little bit powerful. Like there's all this use for any given sense that most people never tack into, never get to experience because we limit ourselves to what we know, to what is expected, what is _easy_. Sometimes," Matt admitted. "I'm a bit glad that I am who, what, I am."

XxX

Karen comments on Matt's bruised eye but Foggy does not. He knows better by now.

He doesn't tell Matt he was hurt.

He doesn't tell him he was in the hospital.

But, apparently, in some conversation he was not present for, Karen did.

Karen goes home for the night and Foggy is lurking around his office. Mostly because Matt hasn't gone home yet and any time with that asshole is better than none.

Even if it's two rooms away and not even talking to each other.

Foggy wonders if he should change his Facebook status and get it out of the way already. Maybe Karen has some cute friends – he's not terribly picky about gender or anything else. As long as they're willing to tolerate him never getting over Matt – oh, and they _pick up their damn phone_.

So, yeah. Not picky at all.

But, he knows he's kidding himself. He'd rather have this not-official break up and trail after Matt like a lost puppy the rest of his life than anyone else.

He's so _screwed_.

But then he looks up from the file he wasn't really reading and Matt's standing in the doorway and it feels – for one brief moment – like he can see, like he's looking right at Foggy the way lovers do.

"You didn't," Matt says, clears his throat. "You didn't tell me you got hurt in the explosions."

Foggy shrugs, fidgets with a pen on his desk. "Wasn't important. I wasn't hurt that bad."

"Foggy," Matt breathes, walking slowly across the room to him, till he's right in front of Foggy, standing beside his desk. "You should've told me."

Fuck. Foggy is so angry and so broken and so messed up. It's all so fucking _messed up_. This saving the world nonsense that Matt got them into isn't going well at all. At least when they were defending corporations he knew up from down and got to go home with this blind bastard every night.

That's all gone now and he's literally bleed over their tiny law firm and Matt's growing ever distant and weird and Foggy would give his left arm to be back in law school where everything still made some semblance of sense.

"I called you," Foggy says and his voice cracks. "I called you, in a hospital bed, wearing a hospital gown, bleeding. I called you."

Matt swallows hard and Foggy can see his hands tensing.

"You didn't answer. Trust me, I wish you would've. I didn't know what had happened to you and Mrs. Cardenas got injured and the city was on fire and I was hurt and bleeding, so I called you. More than once. Karen did too. And you didn't pick up.

"And I… I needed a dozen stitches and I felt so foolish, Matt. So fucking foolish, lying there and hoping you were okay and having no idea if you were or not and unable to go out and look for you and being _mad_ at you that you weren't there to hold my hand. I hate doctors and hospitals and, oh yeah, I hate getting fucking _stitches_. And I know it's selfish, I know it is, but I wanted you there with me.

"But, you didn't answer so I figured it wasn't important."

"Foggy," Matt says again and fuck everything, he's crying.

Foggy already hates himself, hates himself worse now that he's made Matt cry. Just a few tears escaping down from behind his red glasses.

"I'm sorry," Matt says and sinks slowly to his knees, reaching out to touch Foggy, his hands coming gently down onto Foggy's thighs.

Foggy carefully takes the glasses off Matt's face, folding them up and setting them aside on his desk and looks into those beautiful, dark eyes. He thumbs away the stray tears.

"It's okay," he lies, gathering Matt up in his arms, pressing them together.

If he'd known ending up in the hospital needing stitches was what it would take to get Matt back into his arms, he would've done it a hell of a lot sooner.

"I'm sorry," Matt says into Foggy's hair, punctuating it with a kiss.

Fuck. Fuck, he misses this. Misses Matt, misses the casual intimacy they used to have.

He likes the way Matt fits in his arms, his slender body curved against his chest, Foggy's hands spread across his back.

They're silent for a moment, Matt getting a hold of himself and Foggy just wanting it to last.

But then he needs to ask.

"What happened?" he asks, not letting Matt shift in his grip, his voice low, pitched right towards Matt's ear. "What happened to us?"

Matt shakes his head and burrows in a little closer and Foggy doesn't have the heart to press it anymore. He just has to trust that when Matt really wants it over or really wants him back, he'll say so.

XxX

That night, Matt takes Foggy back to his place.

They don't talk much. They don't kiss much but they do hold hands.

He takes Foggy right to his room, sits him on the edge of his bed and asks, "May I?" with his hands poised at Foggy's waist.

Foggy nods, briefly closes his eyes and says, "Yes."

Matt's hands are shaking as they undo his tie, lift it up and over Foggy's head before tossing it away. Then he's feeling for the buttons on Foggy's shirt, undoing them one by one slowly, so slowly. When he reaches the bottom, he pushes the fabric backwards and off Foggy's shoulders, letting the garment lay like a puddle around him on the bed.

Matt places his hands on Foggy's face – leans in for a tiny kiss – before running the pads of his fingers down Foggy's cheekbones, his nose, chin, throat, shoulder. He traces Foggy's breastbone, spreads his fingers carefully across Foggy's ribcage until he brushes the edge of the bandage.

"Foggy? May I?"

"Yes."

Foggy closes his eyes as Matt, so tenderly, peels back the gauze and tape and then he's touching Foggy so lightly it's like he's not touching him at all.

He opens his eyes again, he wants to see this. The unfocused gaze on Matt's face unseeing the wound but his eyebrows drawn up together tight, his mouth turned down in a tense pout.

He's so gentle it doesn't hurt at all when his fingers ghost over the stitches, feeling each one like a scratch on a board, counting them like whip lashes. He reaches the end and sits before Foggy with his head bowed like he's praying.

"I'm sorry," Matt says after a long moment.

Foggy wants to say _it's okay_ but he also doesn't because it's not. He settles for rubbing the back of Matt's neck with one hand, taking what he can get while he can.

Matt changes into his pajamas in the bathroom and he sleeps with a hoodie on – something Foggy's never seen him do before – but when Foggy tentatively rolls to him, wraps an arm around Matt's waist, he doesn't reject him.

He gives Foggy a tiny, brief smile than rests his arm over Foggy's shoulder.

Foggy breathes him in, lying there in the dark and realizing that Matt doesn't smell the same.

He smells a little off, like he's getting over a cold or something, and bit soured like antiseptic, a hint of copper like he's recently been bleeding.

Foggy doesn't ask what he's hiding but he presses his face into Matt's shoulder and fears for him.

For them both, really.

XxX

He dreams about Matt standing in front of the roses outside the dorms. The way he used to look like he'd been transported somewhere else, somewhere lovely where he could see again whenever he stopped to feel the petals on a flower.

He dreams that Matt could see all along and so he never falls in love with Foggy because the world is his oyster and why would that gaze ever fall on Foggy when there is so much more to behold.

He dreams in black and white and red roses and watching Matt dance with a beautiful woman he doesn't know at a wedding reception where he doesn't touch the roses because he already knows what they look like.

He dreams Matt requests a new roommate half way through freshmen year because Foggy is a nuisance. Foggy is loud and messy and disruptive and probably should've become a butcher and Matt can't stand it or him.

He dreams of a sign that says _Matthew Murdock, Attorney At Law_ in the murky hallway he's walking through with his cousin, on their way to make some mundane repair.

He dreams he's behind the bleachers and Matt is stepping back away from him, getting swallowed by a crowd of petty faces laughing and laughing at him.

XxX

He doesn't know what wakes him. Nothing. Everything. The pain in his side, probably.

The room is muddy with scattered shards of light falling in from the open door to the living room, cast by the billboard outside.

In spite of that, it still takes Foggy a moment to orient himself – for a split second he thinks he's back in their shared apartment of law school and he half panics trying to remember if he has something due.

But, no. They're here, they have their own firm and they're trying to take down Wilson Fisk and the only reason Matt brought him back to his apartment tonight is because he feels sorry for Foggy.

Fuck.

Foggy gets up to get a drink of water, making his way slowly and gingerly to the kitchen.

As soon as he's set his cup down on the counter, the ad on the board outside changes to something bright white and the room floods with light.

The last bouquet of roses Foggy gave Matt is still sitting on the counter in the vase Foggy put them in. An eternity ago.

They're withered now, no water in the glass and the flowers long dead and dried out.

Brittle.

Foggy stares at them for a long moment – even after the ad has changed and the apartment is dark once again.

It's like looking at a metaphor for their relationship – long gone but still hanging around.

Why is Matt keeping the flowers around. Why is Matt keeping Foggy around.

Why does Matt do anything.

Foggy reaches out and touches one withered flower. A petal quakes and cracks and comes loose under the pressure, falls off.

Foggy snatches his hand back like he's done something much worse than knock a petal off a dead flower.

This might be it, he realizes, looking past the living room to the motionless shape of Matt curled up on his side in bed.

This might be the last time that they are—whatever they are.

Foggy goes back to bed, lying down behind Matt and putting his arms around him, kissing the curve of his shoulder.

He's still breathing deep and even, fast asleep.

Foggy tucks his face into the back of Matt's neck and whispers, "Please don't leave."

But it feels like a sinking ship inside Foggy's chest – their love still visible but now hopeless. Matt's already left.

XxX

When they were interns with a big corporation, the police never made them identify dead bodies.

Some random punk – who everyone knows is not so random – killed Mrs. Cardenas.

Foggy finds himself standing over her body with Karen crying into his arms and having to tell both the officer and Matt that it is, in fact, her.

She has no family left and Foggy can't stop thinking about her motherly smile and the way she kept trying to nudge Karen towards him and how he didn't have the heart or the evidence to tell her that he already belonged to Matt. And now she's dead. _Multiple stab wounds_.

What a terrible way to die.

It sucks.

It sucks a lot.

And he can't help but blame Matt a little, in his own frustrated, selfish way. Because Matt came in years ago and disrupted him, altered the sort of man Foggy would have been. Until this moment, he couldn't really see it but now it's been laid out on a table for him, it's so vivid.

Two years ago, he would've told her to take the money and bail, go somewhere with electricity and running water because in the end – a house is just brick and mortar – and he knew, he _knew_ , something bad would happen if Fisk didn't get his way. But fucking Matt with his Thurgood Marshall quotes went and set up fucking camp inside his head and challenged him every step of the way. Matt's been holding him and the world at large to a higher standard than Foggy ever considered before, the whole time he's known him. He was just trying to be the kind of lawyer – the kind of _man_ – that Matt expected him to be, wanted him to be, knew he could be.

So, he told Mrs. Cardenas to stand firm. It felt like the right thing to do.

And… and he didn't see this coming.

He'll give it that. He didn't think Fisk would have an old woman murdered in cold blood.

But, apparently, that's one thing Foggy does – underestimates the evil of the world. He grew up in this city and there used to be honor even amongst thieves but that's one of the many things that's been stolen as of late.

The problems he has with Matt are just magnified by her death. By the fact that he's holding Karen and Matt barely speaks, doesn't put his hand on his back or make any other half-hearted attempt at comfort.

Foggy hates himself for being selfish once again, for seeing this as just more evidence to them being done and over and Matt being too much of a coward to cut him loose.

For helplessly remembering the Matt who sat behind him on the side of their bed back in law school, putting his arms around Foggy and kissing the back of his shoulder when he received news one of his favorite teachers from high school had committed suicide. He hadn't tried to make it better, he'd just sat with Foggy, the way a lover should when the other hurts.

XxX

Again, it's selfish.

It's selfish and it's stupid and it fucking _hurts_ like getting punched in the face or needing a dozen stitches in the side, but the first time Foggy has seen Matt outside of the office in _weeks_ (aside from Matt taking him home a few nights earlier) is at the tiny wake they hold for Mrs. Cardenas in Josie's bar and he can barely stand it.

It shouldn't take a _death_ or an _injury_ to get his boyfriend to spend time with him outside of work.

It really shouldn't.

And he doesn't want his frustration over his fizzled relationship with Matt to overshadow the bereavement.

It's not fair. It's one of those moments he wishes he could've convinced Matt to stay at L and Z and get their toehold. There's so little they can do in their tiny firm. Their fight for the little guys has a _bodycount_ now and Foggy fears it'll only get worse.

Fears it'll end up being one of them, one of these days.

It's like everything Foggy was trying to build for himself – for _them_ – is dead in the water. Matt doesn't answer his calls and they have no recourse for Elena.

Fisk is some larger than life image on the television, untouchable and not playing by the rules. Everything's been stacked against them and Foggy never did put much stock in God but lately he feels like it's some sort of miracle that no one has been sent to kill one of them in the night.

So he's gonna get blackout drunk and call it a night. It feels like the only thing he can do.

Matt—Matt doesn't even _stay_ at their tiny, pathetic wake for the deceased. (Let alone take him home, which Foggy was, once again, selfishly hoping he would. Fuck, maybe he needs to get injured again.) Matt slips out while Foggy isn't looking, doesn't even say goodbye.

Foggy never thought it would be like this. Back in undergrad, in law school, when the world still had the potential to be big and shiny. Late night study sessions, reading to Matt in their tiny kitchen some source he couldn't find in braille or audio. How Matt had these ideas about making things better. Not the whole world, just their corner of it. Like if they could plant a single seed of goodness, maybe a garden would grow. Foggy had always found that listening to Matt was like being apart of something bigger than himself.

What can he say – Foggy had believed him. Believed _in_ him. Believed that they could make a difference. The things Matt said, the things he was going to dedicate himself to – it had all made sense. It felt right. It felt like they could start something amazing, become the bellwethers for a better time. All that time with him, even outside of his crush and their relationship, all those hundreds of study sessions and paper writings and lectures had dissolved away Foggy's desire to merely wanting a better life for himself and instead instilled this burning desire to make a better life for his little city.

That was the effect that Matt had on him, on other people. Watching him stand silent over Mrs. Cardenas' body shook the faith Foggy placed in him, in their little firm, in the entirety of their future.

But Foggy's always been good at accomplishing his short term goals and before he knows it, he's damn near shitfaced and knocking over bottles.

"It's all just lies that we tell ourselves to make it through one more day," he tells Karen and he's drunk but he means it.

Karen cuts him off, which, realistically, is for the best but doesn't feel like that.

Because with nothing left to drink the only thing left to do is _feel_ everything that has happened and that's the thing about booze – sometimes it numbs and sometimes it magnifies and tonight everything is crystal clear through the haze.

"No," Karen says. "I don't believe that. I can't," she says.

She sounds like Matt, twenty years old in their dorm room losing his shit over U.S. v. Thind. _That anyone could sit there and legislate someone's humanity based on skin color and class_ – that's what he had said to Foggy, disgust all across his features with his hands across the pages, that beautiful lip curled up into a sneer.

Foggy had shrugged and been glad for a moment that Matt couldn't see him. Some of the things they were learning were hard, so hard.

"It was the times," Foggy had said. "Doesn't make it right."

"Someday, they'll say that about the present, too," Matt replied.

"What would you have done? Back then?"

"I don't know," Matt said, his voice sounding like it was deliberately level. Like he knew exactly what he would've done and just wouldn't say.

Foggy didn't push it.

In the present, he wishes he had.

"What are we supposed to do against somebody that owns everything? Everyone? What can we do to somebody like that?" Foggy asks. It's rhetorical. He knows the answer. It's _nothing_.

It's go about your daily life and try to make the best. It's _survive_ one more day and then the day after. That's it. That's what life in Hell's Kitchen is. Keep going until Fisk sends someone to put a knife in your back or bloody one and leave it in your hands.

Karen – Karen's already been there. On both accounts and she's perhaps a tiny bit more sober than him and just as hurt. But, she's the voice of reason Foggy never knew he needed and she says, "The only thing you can do. You make them pay."

Venom and lace. That's how he's gonna think about her now. The way she talks like she's seen the gates of Hell and she's not afraid. Like she'll tear Fisk's heart out herself given half the chance. At this point, Foggy wouldn't be surprised if she did.

Foggy's glad he's got her on his side.

And it makes him think of another memory of Matt, standing stock still on a sidewalk with his hands on his cane and saying, "You know we're gonna lose some, right?"

Foggy laughed, waved one hand and said, "Nonsense." They were young, they were interns and they were invincible. It was gonna be fine. Back then, everything was going to be fine.

"No," Matt had said, shaking his head but Foggy could see the telltale twitch to his mouth that meant he was holding in a smile. "I'm serious. We're gonna lose some."

"I know," Foggy agreed reluctantly, briefly closing his eyes. "Just, promise me – we won't lose the important ones."

"How do you intend to differentiate?" Matt asked.

"With my heart."

"That's not…" Matt started, but then he let that smile surface. "Okay," he said. "Okay. I guess I'll just…" he shrugged. "Listen to your heart."

"You better."

XxX

It's a blur from Josie's bar to Matt's door.

He just…

He wants him. All of him. The Matt who got upset about cases long over that obviously went the wrong way and the Matt that touched roses and told him he loved him and the Matt who convinced him to leave the glass and steel and open their own place, the Matt he had phone sex with and the Matt who came and got him when he was drunk.

The Matt who used to kiss him like he might never have the chance again.

He doesn't want to give up.

On Matt. On them. On their little firm. On taking down Fisk.

On anything.

If Karen can get her head bashed into a wall and still go after the bastard who tried to kill her – _more than once! -_ than Foggy's not gonna give up this fight either.

He graduated cum laude from Columbia. He came out to his mother. He worked all those odd jobs and got that firm open and on its feet and it's not over yet. It's not.

He bangs on Matt's door. He'll wake the bastard up if he has to. He's gonna tell Matt they're gonna take down Fisk. They're gonna get revenge for Elena. They're gonna do this.

This is what they did all that studying for. And Karen is fucking right. They're gonna take Fisk down at the _knees_.

"Matt!" he yells to the closed door, completely ignoring the fact that Matt has neighbors. "Come on, Matt, I need to talk to you. Matt."

But. There's a moment of doubt when Matt doesn't open the door.

That Foggy's wasting his time. That he put his stock in the wrong place that Matt's already given up that everything thus far has been a waste—

"We got to keep going Matt," he says, like some last ditch effort to rally hopeless troops. Fuck. He's much better in court. When he's sober. Yeah, he's much better when he's _sober_.

"We gotta make him pay," he says. "For Elena. For _everything_."

Because, damn it, if it's over. If it's really over, Foggy's gonna take his frustration out on Fisk. Why not. He's got to have somewhere to channel all that hurt and loss and pain and he can't –he's never gonna be able to focus that at Matt.

Even if Matt's gone and broken his heart, he still wants him, still needs him, will take him anyway Matt lets him and so he's gonna use that particular wound to fuel his hate for Fisk, for the assholes who are tearing up his little city and killing good people.

But as soon as he hears the crash, he doesn't care anymore.

Something's wrong.

Something is very, very wrong. And not in the _my boyfriend stopped loving me_ kind of way.

In the _my (maybe ex?) boyfriend might be dying_ kind of way.

Then he is digging for that key he's spent ages trying to avoid using. All while yelling Matt's name.

He gets the door open and carefully enters the apartment.

"Matt?" he calls. "I heard a crash," he explains, dreading that he has to explain his presence in his boyfriend's apartment. "I just wanted to check on you. Matt?"

The apartment looks like it's been broken into. It wasn't like that the last time he was here.

Matt's apartment got broken into and he didn't tell Foggy?

Or. Or it _just_ got broken into.

He snatches up Matt's cane, left propped against the wall. Informs the intruder that he will mess him up.

He's scared, but he's not lying. Anyone who fucks with Matt is gonna get hell to pay, Foggy will make sure of that.

But.

But he wasn't expecting.

The Mask.

Karen's man in the mask. The one who blows up buildings and kills cops.

Foggy is so ready to beat this bastard into the ground. Fuck if he believes for one minute this dude _rescued_ Karen. (He never did believe she remembered that right. She did get her head bashed into a wall.)

But Foggy pauses, because he can hear the man gasping, labored breathing and his steps unsure and…

Why would an injured vigilante break into Matt's apartment?

He's torn up. Bleeding. His clothes are barely hanging onto his body and he barely makes it into the living room before toppling.

What the fuck is going on?

What the fuck.

He lays on his back on Matt's living room floor and Foggy can see the open cuts on his body, a man fresh from a fight he clearly lost.

It doesn't make any sense.

Still. Matt has not appeared from anywhere nor called for help, which is not a good sign. What if the Mask did something to Matt?

"Where's Matt?" he yells at the man, "What'd you do to him?"

The man does not respond. Too injured, too far gone.

Foggy dials 911 but before it answers, there's something in the way the light hits the man, something about the shape of his lips, the curve of his nose, the bones in his neck…

He looks familiar. Oddly familiar.

Foggy hangs up, kneels down next to him. Slowly. In case this is some sort of trap (he wouldn't put it past Fisk) but it's uncanny, the descent of his shoulders to his hips, the stubble on his chin.

Foggy doesn't know why he didn't recognize it before – the difference between seeing something on television and seeing something in reality – but he knows he knows this man.

He just doesn't know how.

He's careful, he's not sure why, but he is careful as he peels the mask back. Half expecting the man to get some sort of last wind and murder him for his indiscretion but no, he doesn't.

He doesn't.

He doesn't even open his eyes.

Which, theoretically, he doesn't need to.

Because he's blind.

Because it's Matt.

XxX

"Would you not flirt with hot girls right in front of me? I mean, come on, have that much tact at least, would you?" Foggy was slurring, damn near falling down.

"What? I wasn't, I wasn't flirting," Matt defended, tightening his grip on Foggy, but it sounded weak.

"I know when you're flirting," Foggy complained.

"Oh, you do not, I never flirted with you."

"What? Ouch, Matt, ouch. You know, I just got stitches but that really hurt."

"Hey, no, baby, not like… You know what I mean. We skipped that phase. I'm glad we skipped that phase. Much less awkward."

"Jeeze, make a guy feel lucky," Foggy said, he wasn't entirely sure if he was kidding.

Matt stopped walking, Foggy stumbled and nearly fell on his face but Matt managed to grab him and, in some move Foggy never did figure out the mechanics of, redirect Foggy's momentum into him. He steadied Foggy with his hands on Foggy's hip, still holding onto his cane so it dug a little painfully into Foggy's side.

"Hey," he said, his voice pitched low, his breath ghosting over Foggy's cheek. "I'm sorry. I was just trying to make it better," he assured Foggy, thumb rubbing circles on Foggy's hip. "I didn't mean to flirt with her if I did, I'm sorry."

Foggy shook his head. "I forgive you," he said. "You beautiful bastard."

Matt beamed at him, that stupid smile, the punch-drunk-love one. "I'm glad. Now, are you gonna kiss me?"

"I dunno," Foggy mocked. "You want me to?"

"Maybe not," Matt said, stepping back a little bit. "You are high."

"I'm not high!" Foggy argued but he swayed a little and Matt steadied him. "Okay, just a little, shit."

"Foggy."

"Hm?"

Matt leaned in, kissed him, gently, so gently. Then pulled back and gave him that same, stupid puppy-love smile. "Now. Stop doing things that require stitches," he ordered, getting Foggy back onto his right side to lead him home. "Then," he added, "I won't flirt with cute nurses."

"So you were flirting!" Foggy yelled.

Matt hushed him. "Was not."

"You just admitted to it!"

"At least we know you'll do fine in court."

"Why don't you plead the fifth?"

"Foggy. Kindly fuck off."

"You'd like that," Foggy said, leaning into Matt. "You'd like that _a lot._ So much."

"Foggy, you're high. And injured. Let's just go home and go to bed."

Foggy purred into Matt's neck, nearly causing them both to stumble. "Bed, yeah, I like that, bed with you."

"Okay, okay. Just cuddling though, okay? Until you're sober. Until you're healed. You idiot."

"Fine," Foggy agreed, mock bitter, straightening up a little. "But, how do you always know that they're hot?"

Matt shrugged but he had this ridiculous smile. "I dunno," Matt said. "I can just hear it, I guess."

"You can _hear_ if a woman is hot?"

"Yeah. You stutter more around pretty girls."

"Oh fuck you Murdock."

"When you're better, just name the surface."

XxX

Claire is very competent.

That appeases Foggy the slightest bit. Just the slightest.

She doesn't ask much about who Foggy is. Doesn't seem to really _care_ , actually.

She helps him undress Matt as far as his boxers, orders him around a bit, which Foggy is okay with, as long as she _helps Matt_.

Fuck. There is so much blood and his breathing sounds so bad.

But. She is pretty. That stings. And she does look a tiny bit like the nurse who patched him up back in law school. He knows she's not, but it reminds him and he has to swallow all that jealousy and rage and the fact that there is this stranger –

That's what she is, she's a fucking _stranger,_ who knows things about Matt that Matt never shared with him.

She cleans his wounds as Foggy hands her fresh compresses and gauze and whatever else she needs.

She doesn't really answer any questions that Foggy has. She's methodical. She seems tired.

She's done this before.

She's done this more than once before.

She's sick of Matt's shit.

He's a little sick of Matt's shit too, if we're all being honest here.

Before she leaves, she turns to Foggy.

"I'll come by and check on him again. Are you gonna stay with him?"

Matt was out cold. It was nice to hear him not whimpering but it wasn't comforting to see him like this – half naked and bruised and bloody and looking so worse for wear. Foggy was mad – actually, Foggy was _way beyond_ mad – but he still sat at Matt's side, held Matt's hand. Because it felt familiar, because it felt right, because, better or worse, he loved this jerk.

"Yeah, I'm gonna stay with him."

Claire gives him a half pitying smile. The kind that says she knows who he is and what he's about and knows he's too far in to leave and that's a shame. It's a real shame. It's gonna end bloody and it's gonna end with Foggy's heart pierced straight through the center and there's not a damn thing anyone can do about it.

"Don't let him do anything too stupid too soon," she says.

Foggy doesn't even look up from Matt's battered face. He gently pushes his hair back. "I won't," he promises and listens to her leave.

Matt's place seems particularly cold and dark, in spite of the ever changing billboard outside.

Matt breathes hard and labored all through the night.

He doesn't move. He stays on his back and doesn't respond when Foggy squeezes his hand, doesn't object when Foggy lays a blanket over him, props his head up on a pillow.

There are so many questions, Foggy can't even let them form in his mind. It's like a weight pushing down on the center of his chest – all these things Matt must've been keeping from him, for so long.

All those nights he woke up and Matt wasn't asleep, in their bed.

Their bed. They had a bed together. A million years ago, three months ago.

Time is twisted in Foggy's head. So much has happened.

He gets up after a while – legs starting to fall asleep from sitting vigilant by Matt's side – and paces the place.

The broken window and the unmade bed and Matt's clothes scattered on his bedroom floor. Uncharacteristic.

The roses. The dead petal from Foggy's last stay over still on the counter.

He resists the urge to knock the whole thing off the counter, break the vase, crunch the dried flowers to bits and dust.

He covers his face in his hands instead and lets the last few tears of frustration escape into his palms, lets his breathing run ragged for a moment. Feels his skin get hot, his breathing go rough and labored.

How did they get this messed up. How did anything get this messed up.

And why, why didn't Matt tell him. Anything.

It's all been one, long, terrible lie.

After a moment Foggy collects himself. Rinses his face in the sink in Matt's kitchen.

XxX

It…

He'd never really thought about it.

You know. Pantsless behind the bleachers.

Foggy never thought anyone would want to be _Mrs._ or _Mr. Nelson_.

It was this strange pipedream. Like he got caught in that moment and no one was ever gonna see anything in him but the awkward freak that he was in that moment.

Logically, he knew that wasn't true. And he did everything in his power to move past it. Got into the best university he could, pretended that that pain wasn't always there, right beneath the surface.

He got dates. Girls and guys alike. A couple who didn't ascribe to the gender binary. All of them hot in their own ways, all of them interesting and appealing in their own ways.

But, he was young and stupid and everything kept dragging like a lifeline back to Matt.

There was something about him that Foggy could never get over. The way he let Foggy seep into his life, the way he left Foggy take care of him on occasion (he never let anyone take care of him), the way he took care of Foggy…

He just.

Foggy didn't know what he wanted at first. The wounds were still pretty fresh and Foggy was feeling hopeful but also, you know, realistic.

He just wanted Matt around. It didn't matter at first how he was around. Roommate, friend, drinking buddy, study partner. What the fuck ever. Matt was there and he was constant and he never took cheap shots.

Well, he never took cheap shots that he _meant_.

He was gentle in a way Foggy never knew a soul could be. Righteous, yeah, stubborn, oh hell yeah, but, kind. Reasonable. Rational.

And he didn't like to see anyone hurt who didn't deserve it.

Foggy was a lot of things but he knew he wasn't the kind to deserve it.

That was what sold him.

And he spent a lot of time trying not to be attracted to Matt. Because Matt implied he was straight, because – though smart and capable – Matt was still disabled. And Foggy didn't want there to be any room to accuse him of doing anything uncouth to him.

So he really did try. He dated around, he went steady with Marci for a bit, he fucked around with a barista from the nearest Starbucks when it went to hell with Marci.

He didn't look at Matt.

He put him in the friend box and refused – _refused –_ to consider him any other way.

Until that confession.

Until Matt said those words and it all broke inside of Foggy. Shattered glass and dispersing smoke.

Of course he loved Matt.

He just wouldn't let himself admit to himself the fullness with which he loved him.

The way he thought about the future and always found himself imaging Matt right there – hanging onto his elbow as they cross roads and descend stairs.

Like there was a reality in which he wouldn't expect Matt to be right there at the end of every day, close and nearby where Foggy knew he was okay, knew he'd survived another day in this downtrodden city.

He followed the legislation of the Marriage Equality Act in New York with baited breath.

It wasn't…

He wasn't gonna propose. Not like, off the bat or anything.

Still. It felt liberating, exciting, to think that that was an option.

That now there was a potential for a future with Matt, for something solid and legal and he could throw a big fucking party and say _this, this is the person that I love, that I have loved, that I will always love._

Stand there in front of his family and Matt's God and all of creation and say now and forever and for better or for worse, richer and poorer and mean every damn word more than he's ever meant anything in his life.

At some point in the night, Matt's breathing goes a little deeper and more even.

Foggy fears a little less for his life.

But he knows, there's gonna be no such ceremony.

Because shit like this—

Secrets like _this—_

This is the kind of stuff you don't bounce back from.

XxX

Matt wakes with a gasp.

Foggy had dozed off a little at some point in the night, woken up with his anger renewed and stumbled into the kitchen for a beer, because when you find out your long-term _blind_ boyfriend is secretly a vigilante, it's never too early for booze.

Matt starts pulling on his bandages, like he doesn't know he's fucking wounded. Bad. What the hell.

"Wouldn't do that if I were you," Foggy says and closes the refrigerator door. "Then again, maybe I would. What the hell do I know about Matt Murdock?"

And it feels—good. To be that much of an asshole.

Jeeze. He knows he's sticking fingers in wounds but it's been months and it feels a little justified to unleash a little bit of his own sting.

Matt's strung him along for heaven knows how long and he's taken it – taken all of it and let Matt do whatever the hell he was doing.

Supposedly, proving he can live alone fully functional.

In reality, proving that Matt Murdock left unsupervised for any amount of time will damn near kill himself.

"You stitched me up?" Matt asks.

"Nope," Foggy says, deliberately keeping the anger close to the surface, because underneath it is all the worry he has over this asshole and he's so mad he doesn't want Matt to know.

How much he cares.

Fuck it.

He's in it deep and he doesn't know he's ever gonna survive.

Their whole relationship has been one big, long, elaborate lie.

He thought the creatures that tore up the city were some kind of evil. But, Jeeze, Matt's damn near on Fisk's level with his acting skills.

Matthew Murdock delivered an Oscar worthy performance over the past several years. They should bill him big on the posters _– Come See Blind Matt Murdock demonstrate his amazing ability to string along broken geekboys. Watch him hit the high notes on the heartstrings._

Yeah, Matt built himself a really nice little alternate reality.

Blind Matt Murdock and pudgy boyfriend.

Blind Matt Murdock, the orphan, the disabled, the smart kid who worked his way out of poverty to own his own law firm and live in a corner apartment in Manhattan. What a cute little story. Win over the old lady's hearts. Win over the pretty girls accused of murder. Win over the nice nurses with the steady hands.

What a crock of shit.

Foggy, maybe, hasn't always been the perfect judge of character. The high school incident just the worst example of such. But, he never thought he'd get duped so perfectly. It's gotta be textbook, the way Matt played him. A fucking fiddle, for sure. There's no bouncing back from this.

"That was your nurse friend," Foggy explains, pacing restlessly.

"Claire?" Matt asks, his voice.

That voice.

Foggy wants to be angry. Wants to let it carry him right on through, righteous fury. He deserves that. Matt lied to him, he has the _right_ to this—

But.

It's still Matt.

Still the man who used to sigh in his sleep and turn over and bury his nose in Foggy's hair. Who used to hold his hand during thunderstorms, mock-scared, an excuse to cuddle up. Who once let Foggy drag him to an ugly sweater Christmas party and get him drunk on eggnog. Who's woken Foggy up kissing the inside of his thigh on more than one occasion. Who promised Foggy's mother he would make him happy, and that, your honor, never sounded like a lie.

How could all of that have been a lie.

His voice is so broken, bloody like his body, bruised like his body.

Foggy's listened to so many testimonies, so many accounts and recounts. He knows the tremble of the truth sayers and the hardened edge of the liars and how some people sound cold in the truth and tender in the lie but Matt…

Matt sounds _shattered_.

The way people sound when their reality has ended.

Someone's already used Matt as their punching bag recently, it doesn't seem fair or right for Foggy to do the same.

"You had me get ahold of her after you took a swing at me for trying to get you to a hospital," Foggy explains. He's keeping his distance. He's afraid if he gets too close he'll crack.

Afraid that he'll forgive Matt.

He's not ready to forgive Matt. No matter how pathetic he looks, undressed on his couch, the stitches still fresh, blood dried on his skin.

What the fuck kind of trouble did he find for himself, anyways?

"I don't remember," Matt admits.

Great. The amnesia defense. That doesn't work. Matt's way too good a lawyer for that sort of weak ass attempt at deflection.

Then again, that was a lot of blood. Maybe a head wound, too. He might not actually remember.

"Sorry," Matt adds, like that means a damn thing in the given circumstances.

Foggy sits down, the anger is the only thing keeping him from being exhausted. Staying vigilant at your liar boyfriend's side all night really takes it out of you.

"She was hot, by the way," Foggy says. Feels like he has a right to it. To the way Matt always had that obnoxious way of getting pretty girls to pay attention to him – wounded duck thing, yeah, but also just _Matt_ – and it never really bothered Foggy before. In fact, used to stroke his ego a bit. Cause other people could look, sure, that wasn't an issue – Matt was a fine piece – but Foggy knew who he would be going home with at the end of the night.

Except that wasn't true anymore.

And maybe Claire is more useful to Matt long term.

And who would've suspected king of the righteous anger, the man of _we must dissent_ , would be the sort of person to keep people around based on the merit of their usefulness.

What does he know about Matthew Murdock indeed.

"But I guess you already knew that," Foggy says, the anger pressed into his voice. There's probably no coming back from this.

"Foggy," Matt says, like there's anything he could say at this moment to make it right. Like there's a damn thing Matt could explain this far in to sap the anger out of Foggy.

"Just tell me one thing, Matt," Foggy demands. "Are you even really blind?"

It's a question he never thought he'd be asking. Not after Matt's fall in the hallway freshmen year, or every time he took Foggy's elbow long before the they were dating.

It just.

He can't believe Matt's been lying to him this whole damn time.

Matt doesn't answer for a moment. He's still clearly in pain, but he's been walking around injured for a while now, showing up to work like this, so he having this conversation now whether he wants to or not. The rage boils over inside of Foggy all over again.

When Matt does speak, his voice is slow and tired and he begins his description of his world on fire. So, it's not sight in the traditional, five-senses type but it's still fucking _sight_.

"So you can see," Foggy hisses at him.

Matt writhes a little on the couch, from injury or insult, Foggy can't tell and he's not sure he cares.

"That's not… Are you even listening to what I'm saying?" Matt asks.

Foggy's no fool. He's heard backpedaling before and he's way beyond letting Matt play to the jury's emotions. This is about cold, hard fact.

Matt lied to him. For years. For the entirety of their relationship and the whole of their friendship before that and he just expected Foggy would let that go? Walk that off?

What kind of fool did he think Foggy was?

"Yeah, I got it," Foggy yells. "World on fire. But you can see, right?"

"In a manner of speaking," Matt says, his voice is dry and Foggy can hear how powerless he feels in the moment. Some bitter, scorned part of Foggy thinks _good._

He can't stop. He steamrolls right on. "No manner!" Foggy shouts. And he doesn't know why it feels so good to flip Matt off, but it does. Gets right up close to his face and asks, "How many fingers am I holding up?"

Matt's eyes don't focus. Foggy's pretty sure he would've noticed something like that long ago but Matt still swallows and says, "One."

And yeah, it could be a good guess. Foggy knows that. Knows that Matt's always been good at reading people by their voice – it made him deadly in courtroom and gossip alike – but if he's really the Mask then he's not lying.

He can see.

Foggy stumbles back, running his hands through his hair and thinking of thousand little moments.

Matt saying _I can't see you_ and Foggy holding his breath as Matt's hand reached out and touched his face. Mid-October, Freshmen year. Matt had smiled, his thumbs gentle of Foggy's cheekbones then swiping his fingertips carefully down to his chin and saying, "So that's what you look like."

Foggy remembered to breathe, his heart hammering fast in his throat and he swallowed thickly before saying. "I guess, yeah."

But Matt shook his head, his hands still moving over Foggy's skin, pressing lightly against the bone and smoothing over his eyebrows. "No wonder you can't get a date," Matt said, but his ears turned pink as he said it and Foggy couldn't think of a rejoinder.

Matt's fidgeting with the edge of the blanket, a restless gesture that Foggy had gotten used to back in college and then began to adore once they'd started dating. Matt always seemed so infallible, Foggy loved getting to know him well enough to be able to read him, the little nuances of his body and his personality.

But.

But that was all lies, apparently.

Jeeze, Matt was way more clever than he ever knew. And he'd given Matt a lot of credit to start with.

XxX

They stayed up drinking with Foggy's cousins on New Year's Eve. Drank themselves into the New Year.

It was their first year of law school and Foggy hadn't come out yet. Matt was still just his _best friend_ as far as his family was concerned. He'd spent the holidays resisting the urge to reach out and take Matt's hand, a habit he'd developed after Matt's confession the previous May.

They stumbled back to Foggy's room after everyone had finally called it a night – thought it was closer to sunrise than sunset – bumping into each other and walls and loudly hushing each other the whole way. Foggy pulled Matt into his room by his shirt, closed and locked the door behind him before pushing Matt flat against it.

"You have to be quiet," he said, "Don't wake my parents." Then he giggled, his hands still fisted in Matt's shirt. "Jeeze, I feel like such a fuckin' teenager," he said.

Matt's hands were tucked into his hips, fingers tangled in the belt loops as he suppressed a laugh. "I can be quiet if you can be," Matt whispered back.

Foggy snuffled a little, a broken noise around a stifled giggle. "Yeah," he said. "I can be quiet," and then he was kissing Matt's neck, zero to sixty on the hot and heavy scale. Matt responding just as fast, spreading his legs a little to rub up against Foggy.

"I wanted to do this to you all day," Foggy said right into Matt's ear and Matt trembled a little at the vibration of Foggy's voice. His hands slid down Matt's body, over those abs – those fucking abs, holy shit, how could anyone resist Matt – and landed on his belt buckle.

"Please," Matt gasped. That edge of desperation to his voice. Matt just _falls apart_ sometimes when Foggy gets his hands on him. Gets overwhelmed in the sensation of touch, the friction between their bodies, forgets he has other senses.

It's the ego stroke that Foggy never knew he needed but, holy fuck, does he need it.

Foggy kissed Matt on the cheek and said, "Of course. Anything for you. Anything," before sinking to his knees.

He pulled Matt's belt open, undid the button and the fly, shoved Matt's shirt up to lick and nibble at the thin treasure trail there. Then he carefully pushed Matt's jeans and boxers off his hips, down his thighs.

Matt gasped, arching his back against the wood of the door, one palm flat against it, the other carefully cradling the back of Foggy's head. So gentle, his fingers barely caught in Foggy's hair.

Foggy leaned, kissed the crease of Matt's thigh just to feel him tremble and twitch.

"Foggy," Matt gasped, his face pink and his lips plumped from chewing on them.

"You really do have to be quiet," Foggy said. "Walls aren't all that thick here."

Matt nodded and managed to not make a sound when Foggy licked up the side of his dick, kissed the head and kept his gaze up at Matt's face as he slowly sucked him down.

After, Matt shoved Foggy flat onto his bed, worked him out of his clothes and stretched out on his side before slowly jerking him off, keeping their bodies pushed flush together the whole time, whispering into Foggy's ear, "Let go. Come on, baby, let go for me."

Foggy came with a tiny whimper, arching his back and doing his best to muffle the noise wanting to escape.

Matt pet his hair with his free hand, kissing Foggy's jaw and saying, "Good boy, so good for me."

Foggy turned pink under the ridiculousness of the praise but, still pleased in some half-embarrassed manner. He watched Matt roll over and feel for the box of tissues on Foggy's beside, cleaning up the mess before rolling back over into Foggy, tangling their legs together.

Foggy let him get comfortable, wrapping his arm around Matt to keep him from slipping off the edge of the bed, kissing his hairline before saying, "You can't stay here. There's not enough room."

But Matt just burrowed in closer, put his head on Foggy's shoulder and tightened an arm over Foggy's waist.

"Plenty of room," he said sleepily. "Just don't let go."

Foggy, drunk and warm and sated, wasn't gonna argue with that.

They slept rather soundly, pressed together so close, under the covers on Foggy's twin bed.

XxX

"I can't believe I felt sorry for you," Foggy says, sitting down. And, he hates to admit it. Really does hate it, because he knows Matt doesn't want to be seen that way, never expected anything more than common courtesy. It's a low blow, but, nevertheless.

"I didn't ask- I never asked for that," Matt says.

And Foggy's crying now, finally. Now that Matt's awake and speaking and he can let himself feel something other than betrayal and fear that Matt wasn't gonna be okay. "Well I didn't ask to be lied to!" he yells.

Damn it. He's not sure he's ever been this angry in his life.

This hurt. This betrayed.

"I thought we were friends, Matt. Lovers."

"We are," Matt says. He sounds as wrecked as Foggy feels but that doesn't stop Foggy from barging right on.

"You lied to me, from the day we met," Foggy says. He feels so restless, itchy under his skin. All those moments, _years, literal years_ and Matt never confided in him.

It's like he gave Matt everything, let Matt come in and turn him inside out. He never hid a thing from him, told him his deepest fears and his worst memories and Matt had always been there, so steady. So gentle. So kind. Wise. It's that fucking Blink-182 song, _you're already the voice inside my head_. Matt's inside him for good and that's the worst part – it's like a damn infection he's never getting out. A cancer that's gonna kill him because now he knows the truth.

Knows Matt never reciprocated. Never felt the same way. Never even meet Foggy half way.

It's that same bitter feeling, the heady shame. Nothing's changed since high school. Foggy is always going to be the fool who lets pretty boys play him, lets pretty boys use him. Lets pretty boys tell them that he's loved and wanted and important, only to leave him out to dry at the worst moment, the worst time.

Foggy can't believe he walked right into it again. He's such a fool. To think he could be anything other than that ruined kid behind the bleachers, to think anyone would really love a freak like him.

Matt needed some simpleton to give him a cover and, fuck, Foggy has no idea how long he's been waiting, biding his time.

Senior year of college, the roses. He tastes bile in the back of his throat.

All those times they fucked, they made love, Matt's hands on him, Matt saying he loved him. All of that, lies and lies and lies.

"What was I supposed to say, Foggy?" Matt asks, ripping Foggy back into the present, making him look at the newest wounds in his soul. "Hi, I'm Matt, I got some chemicals splashed in my eyes as a kid that gave me heightened senses."

"Well, maybe not lead with that," Foggy says. He knows Matt is being intentionally difficult and it just makes Foggy that much angrier. "But you can't tell me in the years – _years!_ Matty, _years_ , we've known each other, years we were lovers, boyfriends, whatever, you couldn't find one moment to tell me that? Or you just don't trust me?"

It is…personal, he supposes, this secret of Matt's.

But so was all that stuff Foggy told him through the years. Deeply personal. The kind of stuff he would've buried in a field and never touched again if he could. But, God help him, he trusted Matt. He trusted Matt more than he trusted himself.

He wasn't lying when he said no secrets. Maybe a little naive, yeah, he can see that now, but honest.

That's always been his problem. His fucking honesty. All this time trying to be a good person, he just made himself an easier mark to dupe. He's smarter than this, he should've known better.

"I didn't… I didn't even tell my dad after it happened," Matt says like that means a damn thing. People keep secrets from their parents all the fucking time.

"Yeah, well, I didn't tell my mother I was almost shunned out of my high school but I did tell you."

"Foggy, this isn't… That's not the same," Matt says.

"No. You're right. It's not. I told you what happened to me. You never trusted me."

"No," Matt says and a single tear slips down his face, mixing with the blood. "That's not true. I did, I trusted you, I trust you."

"It's real hard to believe that in the face of the evidence," Foggy says. "The whole actions speak louder than words. You're a lawyer, Matt, you should know that more than anyone."

"Foggy," Matt says.

"You told that nurse Claire!" Foggy bellows.

Matt rolls his head pathetically against the pillows. "Because I didn't have a choice," he says.

It's a bad argument. They both know it.

But Matt takes a few steadying breaths and continues, "She found me in a dumpster. Half dead," he says.

And fuck. Fuck everything. Fuck it all right to hell and back because Matt's could've gotten himself killed and Foggy wouldn't have ever known.

That's a new sting, a new bite. Matt could've just gone missing – been dead at the bottom of the Hudson – and Foggy would've never known what happened to him. Would've assumed the worse – the dark figure of crime. Blind man, nice suit, easy target. Random assailant. Robbery gone wrong or flat out pleasure crime.

Would've never forgiven Matt – or himself – for not moving back in together.

Fuck.

"She didn't tell you?" Matt asks.

"No," Foggy says. Apparently patient-nurse confidentiality extends to vigilantes fished out of dumpsters. "She wouldn't say anything about all this," he says helplessly. Although, to be entirely fair, he was also too shocked to press her for details. But even if he had, he gets the feeling she's not the kind who divulges secrets of any form. "She seemed nice," he adds. Just, ya know, in case this is his replacement. She's obviously seen Matt shirtless more often than Foggy has in the past few months.

"She is," Matt says. He sounds like he's done trying to defend himself.

Foggy can't believe the questions going through his mind. All these years, he thought he knew this man as well as he knew himself. He doesn't know anything.

He thinks Matt would never do anything like it, but he also used to think Matt was _blind_ so clearly he knows nothing about the sort of man Matthew Murdock is, so he finds himself having to ask, "Did you blow up those buildings? Shoot those cops?"

"Do you really even need to ask that?" Matt asks, sounding like he's the one who's surprised. Like he's the one who's been lied to.

Which brings back the anger, quick and hard and Foggy reels around. "Yeah, I think I do," Foggy bites out, sitting back down.

Matt doesn't rise to his anger. In fact, he starts to cry again, just a few gentle tears escaping. His reality is crumbling and Foggy doesn't have any compassion for him.

"It was Fisk," Matt says, his voice slow and wrung out. "It was all Fisk."

And this really is the worst emotional rollercoaster of Foggy's life because fuck Fisk and everything Fisk has ever done or stood for.

Matt is his. Was his? Whatever. Matt. He wanted to protect him. Ever since he sat on Foggy's bedside freshmen year and laid his ear on Foggy's chest and listened to him breathe until he calmed down.

What happened to that Matt? The discrepancy between the bloodied man on this couch and the teenager who fell down the stairs is too much for Foggy to rectify in his brain.

Still. Elena's death and the hole in the wall in Karen's apartment that Foggy helped patch – he's not surprised Fisk would do this.

"He did this to you?" Foggy says.

"He and Nobu," Matt explains, like that helps at all. Like Foggy has the faintest clue who that is.

"Nobu?"

"Yeah. I think he's some kinda ninja," Matt says, his eyes glazed over with tears.

This is… His boyfriend is a blind vigilante who was nearly murdered by a ninja in Hell's Kitchen in the twenty-first century. Rationally, Foggy knows they live in a city that was attacked by aliens not terribly long ago, still. It's too farfetched for their little scrap of reality.

"A ninja?" Foggy asks in disbelief because, come on. This is ridiculous.

"I think," Matt says. He still sounds wrecked, like he needs a glass of water and a nap and Foggy finds himself even angrier at the situation that those are still the things he thinks about.

That he loves this liar so much, he still wants to take care of him even though he's clearly a suicidal idiot who played Foggy like a fiddle for years.

He snaps back up, "What are you doing Matt? You're a lawyer, you're supposed to be helping people."

He can't believe he's having this conversation.

He thought, eventually, Matt would just sit him down and give him some terrible version of the _it's not you, it's me speech_ and then they would talk about whether ex's can really be friends, let alone colleagues who own a business together. This is so removed from the conversation he's been rehearsing in his head in the shower every morning for the past month, he has absolutely no script for this.

"I am," Matt says and he sounds like he fucking believes it. All of that dissenting talk and all of those late night study sessions and Matt leaning back on his chest like a cat while discussed what they would've done differently—

More lies. So much for learning the law to help people.

"In a mask," Foggy says, because why is Matt acting like this isn't what it is – which is just a fucking _crime_. No one can do this shit for real. This is what the legal system is for. This is what democracy is for.

"Do you know what they call that?" Foggy goes on. "A vigilante. Someone who acts outside the law." He's yelling and making hand gestures and all and he feels bitter and vindicated by the knowledge that Matt can hear and _see_ how angry he is. How hurt he is.

How everything is broken and he should've become a fucking butcher and never met one Matthew Murdock.

Of course that's the moment Karen calls. Shit, he'd forgotten about her for a moment.

Matt rolls stiffly towards the side, but Foggy's the one who hasn't been beaten to shit and he's faster, snatching Matt's phone away.

Something he would've never done a day ago, a week ago, two months ago.

He hits ignore, lets it roll over to voicemail and then it hits him all over again.

"Is this what you do? When we call you, trying to get you to come out for drinks? Trying to find you when bombs are going off and we're worried? When I'm missing my boyfriend at night because he ignored me all day? You just hit ignore?"

"No," Matt says and Foggy files that way as another lie to add to the pile. How can he ever trust anything Matt says again?

But before Matt can say anything else, Karen calls Foggy's cellphone.

He wants to tell her the truth. She deserves to know that her Man in the Mask is Matt. That Matt's been lying to him, to them, for so long.

"Foggy, please," Matt says and fuck him. Fuck him and his ability to yank Foggy around, and how Foggy can't dig the thorns out of his heart.

It's always gonna be Matt and it's not fair. He never got a choice.

He tells Karen Matt was in an accident, tells her to stay at the office.

He hates himself. He hates Matt. He hates Fisk and he hates this fucking city that keeps finding ways to bastardize and destroy anything good left in the world.

XxX

They danced once.

"My mother taught me," Foggy said. It was late November, cold outside. They had the place to themselves, Laura and Patrick had gone to Ohio to visit family for the holiday. They were broke and burnt out from studying. "Which is perhaps one of the more embarrassing things I've ever admitted to," Foggy added as an afterthought.

Matt just smiled and shook his head. "You've done way more embarrassing things."

"Hey now," Foggy warned.

"I love you anyways," Matt said and, man, Foggy was never gonna get sick of those words in that mouth.

"I love you too," Foggy said.

"You gonna teach me or not?" Matt asked.

"Okay, but I'm rusty. It's been a while."

"Oh, that's the excuse you're gonna go with?"

"You wanna do this or not?" Foggy asked.

"Okay, I'm listening."

"It's like," he moved into Matt, placed one hand on Matt's hip. "Um. You're gonna be the girl, sorry."

"Foggy Nelson ascribing to gendered bullshit? I'm surprised," Matt said. "You always seemed more _progressive_ than that. One too many women's lib classes trying to get with what's her name – the one who quoted Bell Hooks at least once a conversation."

"Hey, Jeanie and I were just friends and don't dis Bell Hooks," Foggy said. "Let me rephrase for your delicate feelings. You are going to be delegated the traditionally female part of this particular dance, happy?"

Matt shook his head with a little laugh. "Yeah, I guess so."

"So put your hand," he took Matt's hand and guided it to his bicep. "Here," he said and took Matt's other hand in his. "Like this," he says. "It's uh, one, two and three. It's a two-step. Mom was a country girl at heart."

Like most things, Matt picked it up fast, let Foggy dance him around their tiny kitchen. Spin him once or twice.

It was ridiculous. Foggy loved it.

"So yeah, there you go," Foggy said afterwards, letting go of Matt and stepping back.

"See, I only ever knew this one," Matt said and pulled Foggy back into him, letting Foggy put his hand back on Matt's waist, his arm wrapping around the back of Foggy's neck and pulling them in close. Flush. Tucking his face into the crook of Foggy's neck and holding their hand near their bodies.

Then they just swayed together, slow and easy. Springsteen's _Secret Garden_ playing low on Matt's laptop and the two of them moving in sync, like they'd done this a million times.

For days after, he couldn't stop thinking of the way Matt's body fit in against his, the feeling of their hands clasped together, the way Matt had blushed and smiled and kissed him when the song ended.

All that, so far gone now.

XxX

For all his anger, it actually hurts to say the words _screw you_ and mean them. Yeah, he's told Matt to fuck off several times through the years, but he never _meant_ it before. And it was usually followed by some half-serious offer for sex when he did.

There's no such joke now. Matt's got him telling his lies for him and this is not what Foggy signed on for. It's just not.

Still.

When Matt struggles to sit up, Foggy helps him. Mindful of his wounds, one hand on the ribs that Claire assured him weren't cracked or bruised and the other under his opposite arm.

Matt's voice sounds thin and tired when he begins to speak, tell Foggy everything, like he promised.

Foggy hates that he is this way, that he's always going to be this way, but the urge to take care of Matt is still strong and persistent in spite of his anger and he brings him a water bottle and bites back the seething retorts that want to make themselves known when Matt takes it with a sigh and says, "Thank you."

Matt directs him to the closet, to his gear, hidden away under his father's old boxing things.

So much for Jack Murdock's son not solving things with his fists.

Matt tells him about Stick and it's so outrageous, Foggy doesn't think he's lying. Matt's too clever to come up with a lie that thin. Then again, he lost a lot of blood.

Either way. It only gets worse from there.

Matt tells Foggy all the things he just knows. That Foggy rinsed his face in Matt's kitchen sink, that he's tired and hungry (but that's probably obvious even without the super senses) and that he can hear his heartbeat.

That he knows when Foggy lies to him.

Every new revelation is a deeper level of shame and anger and betrayal to Foggy. He's lower than he remembers ever being. It really puts the high school incident in perspective. A perspective Foggy could've lived without.

He hates to ask it, but he has to, he finds himself standing over Matt and asking, "Was anything ever real between us?"

There's a twenty-two year old Matt inside his memory, wearing nothing but sweat pants as they study together on a Saturday afternoon but he keeps interrupting Foggy to steal kisses. Each time saying, _just one more_ as he cups Foggy's face and leads him into the kiss again and again and again. Does it until Foggy abandons studying for the day and they spend the rest of the evening laughing and making love like fools.

They were fools.

At least, Foggy was. Such a fool. He's still a fool.

"It was real," Matt says, his voice watery again. "It was real."

"It's real hard to believe you," Foggy says.

Matt nods and doesn't try to defend himself.

"All this time," Foggy says and just shakes his head.

XxX

He wasn't out to his family yet at graduation.

Still, he was the happiest he ever could remember being in that moment, helping Matt straighten his honor cords and put his cap on and kissing him.

His mother had called a few hours before the ceremony and asked if anyone would be there for Matt.

"No, he's got no one," Foggy said, looking over his shoulder to see if Matt had come back into the room and would overhear him. He hated talking about Matt like that.

"What a shame," his mother said.

He'd shrugged and then said, "I just shrugged," and then face palmed himself while his mother laughed.

When Matt crossed the stage at graduation, the entire Nelson clan cheered for him. Whoops and hollers. Like he deserved. He'd startled and blushed and smiled and turned as though looking down the line for Foggy, beaming.

"I didn't know they were gonna do that," Foggy confessed later. Mrs. Nelson insisted on taking them both to dinner. Doting a little more on Foggy than Matt, but not by much.

Matt stretched out on his belly on the trundle bed in Foggy's room and just smiled, holding out his hand for Foggy, who took it carefully and laced their fingers together.

"I don't mind. It was… it was nice."

"Don't use up all your words at once," Foggy said, blushing.

Matt squeezed his hand. "Tell them thank you for me," Matt said.

"You can do that yourself," Foggy replied. "Seriously, sometimes I think they like you better than me."

"Lets hope they still feel that way once they learn I've corrupted their little boy."

Foggy rolled his eyes. "I think it'll be okay, I'm just not there yet."

"Whenever you're ready," Matt promised and followed it through with a jaw-cracking yawn.

"Sure, sure. Go to sleep, Romeo," Foggy said, kicking the side of the trundle bed.

XxX

Matt tries to stand up and Foggy – gently, cause he's not a total asshole – makes him sit back down.

"Foggy, I'm fine," Matt insists.

"Just let me help you, would you? Can you do that much? Or you got super healing powers too?"

Matt sits back down with a huff and doesn't dignify that particular blow with a response.

Foggy rubs his face in frustration. "What do you need?"

"Just gonna get my hoodie, pair of socks," he says.

"Fine," Foggy replies, stalking into Matt's room, pulling out the clean clothes.

Matt makes a half-hearted attempt to not let Foggy help him dress but he gives up the first time he tugs on his stitches putting his arm through the sleeves.

Foggy zips it up for him before kneeling down to pull Matt's socks on for him.

"I can do that," Matt says, one hand on Foggy's shoulder. Foggy doesn't respond, just reaches for his other foot and pulls the sock on for him.

He sits back on his heals and is about to say something – _what_ he hasn't quite figured out – when his phone rings.

Brett tells him Elena's murderer is dead. Pushed or jumped off some building.

It doesn't feel as good as Foggy assumed it would. Because the logical assumption is _right there_.

Matt bruised and broken on the couch and Elena's killer dead and Foggy wants to go take a shower thinking about Matt's hands on him, all of a sudden, unsure if those same hands killed a man. When they could've – should've – let the justice system take care of it. That's what they've been trying to do. Get the law to work the way it's supposed to.

"I didn't kill him, Foggy," Matt says. "It's Fisk, covering his ass."

Foggy doesn't know if he believes. He wants to believe, holy shit, does he want to believe. But in light of recent events, it's hard to get there.

"You've never gone that far?" Foggy asks.

"No," Matt says and he feels himself on the edge of forgiveness. Not, not total forgiveness – that's a long way off if it exists at all – but he's still looking for a reason to be here, be with this man, a reason to believe the last years of his life haven't been a total lie.

"But I wanted to," Matt says.

And just like that, they're back at square one and Foggy isn't sure where they go from here.

"After Elena," Matt adds, but it feels like a plea to the emotions. He's a damn good lawyer. "After everything Fisk had done."

Matt admits that he went to kill Fisk. That's how they got here. Matt bit off more than he could chew.

Foggy wants to call him an idiot, but Matt's probably already figured that out for himself by now. Hopefully.

Foggy can't rectify his reality with this revelation.

The Matt who kept pushing for people to do what was right, the Matt who convinced Foggy to leave L and Z, the Matt who sat up at night and listened to the city breathe.

His Matt and this Matt.

They are not one in the same.

XxX

"I don't think two-stepping is gonna help us here," Matt whispered into Foggy's ear as the band started.

This was Foggy's only qualm with Columbia – Ivy League meant blue blood, old money. Big, fancy, night wedding with a live band and everyone dressed to the nines and food served on china. The last wedding Foggy went to was his cousin's and they had the reception in a backyard in Queens.

Matt had never been to a wedding.

He was being uncharacteristically nervous, staying practically glued to Foggy with his arm in the crook of Foggy's elbow. Foggy didn't mind at all.

Even Foggy was a little shy at first. It still felt a little daring to be out, but the bride had assured them it wouldn't be a problem and she was right. No one batted an eye at them. Or, only nosy old women and busy body old men did, but fuck that. As long as they said nothing than Matt didn't have to know.

"What do you think of all this?" Foggy asked, half an hour later as he wolfed down as much shrimp as he could.

"Better than the campus cafeteria," Matt replied with that telltale twitch in his lips.

"No, I mean-," Foggy started.

"I know what you mean, Foggy," Matt replied. "I dunno," he said. "It's nice?"

"It's nice," Foggy repeated, dryly. "Dude, if you could see it."

"Describe it," Matt ordered, barely letting Foggy finish.

"Um. Okay. Think, Christmas in July. Everything's decked out in white little lights, like Christmas lights, fairy lights?"

"Fairy lights?"

"Shut up. You couldn't do better."

"Hm. You got me there. Go on."

"Okay, the band is dressed all in white. They look like something you'd see on some old rich dude's yacht, if I'm being honest."

"Please, always be honest," Matt said, then tucked his nose into Foggy's neck to give him a tiny kiss. "Go on."

"Right. The bridesmaids are wearing… Umm… burgundy? You know, like a deep, rich red color."

"I know what burgundy is, Foggy."

"Right, right. And there are flowers on every table. Roses. Red and white, and they have these like, spirally stick things in the bouquets that are sparkly gold. They look like frozen fireworks."

Foggy looked around the room, trying to figure out what to describe next and his gaze fell upon the couple at the table at the front.

"And the bride. She is just radiant. I mean, her dress looks like a cake that wanted to be a mermaid."

Matt snickered.

"But you can see on her face, she knows she made the right choice. It's like she can't wait for the rest of her life."

"And the groom?" Matt asked, he'd gone a little still, the dark of his glasses hiding his unfocused gaze, but turned toward Foggy, giving Foggy the whole of his attention.

Foggy put his hand over Matt's where it had come to rest on his knee while he was talking.

"He looks like he can't believe he gets to spend the rest of his life with this person. Like he knows it doesn't matter what happens now, he found his partner and he's not letting go, come hell or high water."

Matt made a little humming sound, leaning into Foggy. "He sounds very lucky."

"He probably is." Foggy said, no longer looking at the groom, but watching the steady shade of pink climb up the back of Matt's neck.

XxX

Matt looks pathetic, curled up on his side on the couch. He looks small and childlike and Foggy has turn towards the window to fully resist the urge to drape a blanket over him.

Fuck all of his protective habits. Matt never needed him.

"You wanna say something," Matt says, not even moving from his spot on the couch.

"Really don't," Foggy snaps back, staring out the window.

"Your breathing changes when you're about to," Matt says.

Foggy kind of wants him to shut up. Revelations like that further prove how well Matt knows him and how little he knows Matt. It's driving the knife deeper and all he can come up with to convey that is, "Now you're just showing off."

But Matt's right. He does want to say something.

And that's the problem.

There's so much to say it's overwhelming. So many questions he still has, he's not sure he wants answers. The more he learns, the worse it seems to get.

He wants to keep his memories of Matt pristine, untouched like snow globes that haven't been shaken. He wants to know for once in his life that he was loved and happy and let it go at that, because Foggy's no idiot – there's no coming back from this. He's never gonna let anyone near him again. He doesn't want to ask Matt more questions and get more damaged from the answers.

He wants to walk out that door and never come back.

But he doesn't. Some misplaced sense of loyalty. Some broken part of him that thinks this might still be able to be fixed.

Fuck.

Matt's not gonna let it go though. He's… Fuck. He's sincere and almost sweet as he tells Foggy, "Say what you need to say."

Foggy turns around, slowly, resting his palms against the windowsill and leaning back against the glass. It feels comforting and cold along his back. He looks down at Matt – still curled up on the couch like he doesn't have a perfectly good bed ten feet away.

"You wanted to live on your own so you could do this," Foggy says.

It's not a question. He's not stupid.

Matt turns toward him – seeing, not seeing Foggy – and shakes his head. "No."

"Don't," Foggy says, softly, putting one hand up. "Don't lie to me anymore, Matt. Please. We're both… We're both too good for that."

"I'm not," Matt says, shaking his head. "I'm not lying."

"I really wish I could believe you. But. You tell me you want to move out, see if you can make it on your own. But, you knew- you knew you could make it on your own."

"No," Matt says. "No, I didn't. I really didn't."

"You can see!" Foggy yells.

Matt shakes his head, he's started to cry again. Foggy would feel vindicated but he's started to cry, too.

"It's not… It's not that simple," Matt manages to say after a moment.

"Then please, explain it to me. We lived together, for years, happily. At least, I thought it was happily but now I'm not so sure," Foggy continues, managing to wrestle his emotions from _really fucking depressed_ back to _absolutely livid._ "Then, you tell me you want to move out, live on your own, and now you run around dressed like a moron, beating people up. Did I miss something?"

"Don't blur it all together like that," Matt says, rising to Foggy's anger. "You know it's not like that."

"I don't know anything. That's my point. I don't know shit. Which, I would guess, is how you wanted it."

"Foggy," Matt says, his voice somewhere between exasperated and warning. "This isn't about you."

"You mentioned that," Foggy says, icy. "Please, explain it to me. You get this – whatever as a kid. How do you go from that to what you're doing now?"

Matt takes a breath, visibly collecting himself. Foggy knows that look. It's the same one Matt used to get before he said _I love you_ or _you need to brush your teeth_ or _please don't tell the butcher story again_. It means he's about to be brutally honest – whether Foggy likes it or not.

Foggy wishes he'd had the guts to be this honest before.

"When I was a kid," Matt explains. "Before the accident, I'd lay awake at night listening to sirens. I liked to put stories to them. Try to figure out what they were for. Ambulance or cops, robbery or fire. I dunno. Just a stupid game," he says. "But after I lost my sight, after my abilities developed, I realized how many sirens there actually were. How much this city suffered every single night."

It… It's not what Foggy expected him to say. Foggy's not actually sure _what_ he expected to hear, but it wasn't that.

He's silent for a beat before something occurs to him.

"That's what you were doing, before. When we lived together. When you couldn't sleep. You were listening to the city?"

Matt doesn't reply at first, but then he nods, turning his face down.

"What… What changed? You weren't running around as a vigilante at night when we lived together, were you?"

"No," Matt said. "Not back then. I tried, I tried to block it out, Foggy. I did try. I didn't want to fight. I wanted to make my Dad proud. I wasn't… I wasn't lying. I wanted to live on my own just to prove it to myself. That I could be by myself if I needed to. That was never a lie."

There's something in the way Matt says it, a sincerity to the depth of his hurt, that drives it home and Foggy believes him, but damn if he's admitting that yet.

"But after I moved out on my own, I," Matt shook his head, like he didn't know where to begin. "It was harder to block out, without you near by. I could hear all the pain and the suffering strangling Hell's Kitchen… But, I tried to push it all out."

Foggy begins to pace just a little, restlessly, listening to Matt talk. Thinking about how much Matt was hurting, all along, lying there in the same bed every night next to Foggy and suffering in silence.

He had no idea.

That revelation stings as deep and reverberates just as hard as learning Matt had been lying to him the whole time. That he knew so little about Matt, knew Matt so poorly, he couldn't see how badly Matt was hurting on behalf of their little city.

"Then one night," Matt continues, "Just after we got separate places, back when we were trying to start our own firm, I heard it."

Foggy _knows_ he doesn't want to know what. He knows that. But he's a lawyer and he's heard all kinds of terrible things in testimonies and one of his clients got murdered this week and he had to identify the body so what is one more horrible thing added to the shitshow that is turning out to be Franklin Nelson's life.

"Heard what?" he asks.

"Little girl," Matt says.

Foggy is going to be sick.

"Crying in her bed in a building down the block."

It's one thing to know Matt can hear a heartbeat across a room. It's another to know he can hear a girl crying down the block. But Foggy can't even focus on what a ridiculous abnormal ability that is because Matt continues right on.

"Her father liked to go to her room late at night," Matt says. "When his wife was asleep."

Foggy has to sit down. He doesn't need to hear more – he knows where this is going but he did ask and Matt does continue.

"I called child services, like you're supposed to. But the mom, she wouldn't believe it, said it wasn't true. And the dad, he was smart, he made sure what he did, how he did it, it didn't leave a mark."

Foggy's going to throw up.

"The law couldn't do anything to help that little girl," Matt says. "But I could."

And then he tells Foggy how he tracked him down. How he knew the bastard's routine and jumped him one night, when he wouldn't get seen. Beat the man half to death and warned him never to touch his daughter again.

Foggy's not…

Okay.

It's _hard_.

The law isn't perfect. He knows that. He's always know that. And it's easy to not disagree with Matt on this instance.

He probably would've jumped that bastard too. He wouldn't have been as effective as Matt, but he still would've.

"He spent the next month in a hospital, eating through a straw. And I never slept better," Matt finishes.

"You say all this like you just had it one day. But…" Foggy sits up a little. "I lived with you, Matt. We were lovers," he says. "I've been _very_ up close and personal with your body," he adds, a little bit strangled. "I thought you were just going to the gym. But, to do this, you must've been training. All along. All those years since that Stick guy…" Foggy stops himself from going down that road again. "You knew. You knew someday that you would do this," he says. He's surprised at how steady and cold his voice is when it comes out.

"So, it's not about justice," Foggy surmises. "Moving out was never about taking care of yourself. You knew you would do this. Maybe this is just about you having an excuse to hit someone. Maybe you just can't stop yourself."

Matt doesn't raise his voice, doesn't defend himself. Instead, he says, "I don't want to stop."

This isn't what they went to school for. This isn't the Matt who quoted Marshall at him and marveled at the wit of the lawyers in Mary Ellen Wilson's case. The Matt who kept cases gone wrong close to the heart like something personal. The Matt who was going to change the world through the system, the right way, toehold be damned.

"So you knew you would do this, and you had to move out so I wouldn't find out. What I don't get, Matt, why didn't you just break up with me?" Foggy asks. "I'm the chink in your armor in all this."

The pang of it now is distant, like getting used to a backache. It still hurts but he's learned to work around it.

Matt opens his mouth but doesn't say anything at first. When he does speak, his voice is very small. Uncharacteristically so for him. "I love you. I don't want it to be over. I didn't break up with you because I didn't want to break up with you. I _don't_ want to break up with you."

Foggy knows he's not lying but that doesn't mean it doesn't feel like one, like a cheap shot. Like getting the wind knocked out of him or some jock with pretty eyes telling him that it's just not the right time to come out and asking for forgiveness.

A lie might've actually been better.

He's gonna spend his whole life a fucking laughingstock. He knows that but he's not sure he's ever gonna get used to it.

"Well," Foggy says. "You should've thought about that before you lied to me."

Matt has the decency to nod. He doesn't try to defend himself. He knows Foggy is right.

But it doesn't make Foggy feel vindicated. He just feels hollowed out.

"I need to do this," Matt says. "The law… Isn't not always enough. I need to do this, Foggy," Matt says. "This work, it's important. I'm making a difference."

"You're gonna get yourself killed," Foggy says. He doesn't add _I don't want to have to bury you, you're the only good thing left_ _in Hell's Kitchen_.

"I can take care of myself," Matt says. He sounds like the same Matt who said people treat him like glass.

He's not glass. He's just a suicidal maniac.

And he's gonna die in some back alley brawl and kill Foggy's heart with him and Foggy never even got a choice, never even got asked his opinion.

"What about the rest of us?" Foggy says. "Me, Karen. We're a part of this now, because of you. And we didn't get a say in that."

Foggy can't actually believe this didn't occur to Matt before. Matt – calculating, clever Matt. The Matt who tried a thousand beds before settling on theirs – on _his_ – like some blind princess and the pea.

Of course he thought of this.

And what?

Decided Karen and Foggy were collateral damage in the long run? A wound he was willing to live with?

That it would be alright to inflict an injury they would never see coming?

The revelation tastes like bile in Foggy's throat.

Matt just shrugs and asks, "What do you think is gonna happen if I give up now, Foggy? Who's gonna stop Fisk?"

"I dunno," Foggy says sharply. "The law."

"Tell that to Elena," Matt says and score one for the cheap shot.

Foggy wonders if hits like that are something Stick taught him or something inherent to Matt's character.

"If you could've put on a mask and prevented what happened to her, you telling me you wouldn't have?" Matt asks. Like he doesn't know Foggy at all.

Foggy never thought about it, never even considered it. Until last night, he thought the Devil of Hell's Kitchen had been a coward – a real hero would show his fucking face; stand up for his convictions in the light of day. Hiding behind the Mask makes him no better than Fisk. No better at all.

"It's not fair, Matt," Foggy says.

"We don't live in a world that's fair," Matt counters, not even giving Foggy the chance to finish. "We live in this one. And I'm doing everything I can to make it a better place."

XxX

"It didn't go too bad," Matt said. They took the subway back to their apartment after Foggy came out to his parents. Foggy was leaning against Matt and smiling a bit like a fool.

He half expected to get excommunicated from his family.

"Yeah, it didn't," Foggy agreed, feeling strangely light and giddy. He didn't like lying to his family, he didn't like lying to anyone. It was freeing to have it all out in the open. To be able to hold Matt's hand and not have to worry about who saw him do it.

"Not sure if they like me or not anymore," Matt said and Foggy could hear the worry in his voice.

Foggy leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. "Hey," he said.

Matt tipped his face towards Foggy to indicated he was listening.

"Just don't break my heart and they'll like you," Foggy promised, giving Matt's hand a little squeeze.

Matt smiled. "I'll do my best," he said.

XxX

 _A better place_.

Foggy is pointing out the similarities between Matt and Fisk before he can stop himself. He's no longer sure if he means it or if he just wants to hurt Matt.

Fucking hell, he wants to hurt Matt. It's a new sensation, one he's never had nor dreamed he would ever have. It's abusive and wrong and Foggy knows it, barely manages to stamp down that feeling as Matt pleads for him not to twist his words around.

They're lawyers. That's half their job.

"You tried to kill him, Matt," Foggy says. Part of him knows the world would be better off with Fisk in a watery grave but that's not the point. He's such a snake his crimes should be brought into the light of day and he should be made an example of for any other crooks out there that plan on turning into him.

Matt's antics would take that justice away. Just wipe him off the map for someone else – someone just as bad or perhaps worse – to take up his mantle and continue his reign of terror or instigate a new one.

"You told me yourself," Foggy says. "How is that any different from the way he solves his problems?"

"I made a mistake," Matt says. That argument probably even sounds weak to Matt. "I know that."

"Misspelling Chanukah is a mistake," Foggy yells. "Attempted murder is a little something else."

Matt fidgets but doesn't reply.

"You ever stop to think what would happen if you went to jail?" Foggy asks. "Or worse?"

Because Foggy knows he did. He _knows_ that, down in his gut. Collateral damage.

All those years. Every time Matt said _I love you_ and leaned in for the kiss, late nights arguing old cases and debating the letter of the law vs. the spirit of the law and half a dozen Christmases with the Nelsons, Sunday breakfast on the fire escape, Matt blushing bright pink after an embarrassing noise in bed, pausing documentaries to describe what happened, the way Matt could roll with the good-natured ribbing of Foggy's cousins, Ash Wednesday Mass even though Foggy wasn't Catholic, proofreading each other's papers and wishing each other _good luck_ before taking the Bar exam, holding hands as they watched The Incident unfold on the news, vetting a real estate agent and opening their own rinky-dink law firm.

All that. All of that, collateral damage to Matt Murdock. Worth whatever he got out of being the Mask.

"You really think that anyone would believe that I didn't know what you were doing? That Karen didn't know? We were lovers, Matt. They wouldn't believe that I had no idea. All this time, Matt, I had no idea."

Matt started crying while Foggy was yelling and Foggy's not far behind, cause Matt crying always tipped Foggy right over the edge and into following suit.

Sometimes, he wishes he could carve out how tender his heart is.

Matt used to say he loved him for it. _Some infinitely gentle, infinitely suffering thing_ , he'd once quoted, fingers on the pages and a tiny smile tugging at the edge of his lips. ( _"You think I'm suffering?" Foggy had asked._

 _Matt blushed but fired back with, "Well, you live with me. One can only assume."_ )

"The city needs me in that mask, Foggy," Matt says. Like that means a damn thing to Foggy.

Foggy is never going to be the person he wanted to be or the person he thought Matt wanted him to be.

And Matt was, apparently, never the man Foggy thought he was.

He threw away everything for this liar calling himself a lawyer.

So fuck him.

And fuck everything he did to Foggy.

"Maybe you're right," Foggy says. He doesn't believe it, not for one minute. "Maybe it does.

"But _I_ don't," Foggy says.

Matt's twitching, tears falling down his face.

Foggy doesn't even have the urge to comfort him. Look at how far they've fallen.

"I only ever needed my friend," Foggy says. "My boyfriend," he adds. In case Matt forgot.

And he wants him, oh god, does he want him.

Not this Matt. Not this wrecked, bruised Matt sitting in his sweatpants on his sofa under the garish light of a billboard outside.

No. Foggy doesn't even know who this Matt _is_.

But he wants _his_ Matt. Law school Matt. Matt on his back on the tailgate, holding his hand as Foggy describes the stars. Matt in front of their old dorm building, feeling the flowers with his fingertips. Matt at L and Z, trying to do what was right. Matt sleeping soundly in the trundle bed in Foggy's old room, the gentle outline of him in the dark. Matt pressed up against Foggy in their bed, silk sheets kicked aside asking if Foggy has one more in him.

He misses that Matt in this gulf that he didn't know could exist outside of death.

He misses the Matt he _knew_ would never lie to him. The one he put everything on the line for. The one he was going to propose to. The one he was going to grow old with.

This Matt is just a ghost with his face, baring his sins for judgment. And judge Foggy has.

"I wouldn't have kept this from you," Foggy says, like there is a world in which he would ever act the way Matt did. Like he even really comprehends Matt's behavior.

He never thought he was the better of the two of them but he's rapidly changing his mind.

"Not from you," he adds, just to sink it home. Foggy will admit to having lied to lots of people. But not to Matt. Not when it was important.

"You don't know that," Matt says, voice as wet as his eyes. "You don't know that."

"Yeah," Foggy says, swallowing. "I do."

Foggy fishes his keys out of his pocket.

It's been a long time coming. That's the worst part. He knew he should've ripped the bandage off months ago. Maybe it wouldn't hurt so bad now if he had. But he was still hopeful back then, still keeping his fingers crossed that Matt would realize living alone was a useless endeavour and ask for Foggy back.

"Foggy," Matt says.

Foggy doesn't answer him as he works the key to Matt's apartment off his key ring. It clatters against the others – the key to his place, his parent's, the office. His life is gonna be such a mess to clean up after this.

"Foggy, what are you doing?" Matt asks, tiny edge of panic to his voice.

"What you weren't brave enough to do," Foggy says. He gets the key free. "Leaving."

He sets the key down on the table in the corner of Matt's apartment.

"Foggy," Matt says again. He's pleading.

"It's over, Matt," Foggy says.

He can't believe he's here. He can't believe he had to be the one to call it off. Matt can face off with murders on the street and be utterly cut throat in the courtroom, but when it gets down to the wire, he's not good enough to do what needs to be done.

But. Foggy's not gonna be his fool anymore.

"Foggy," Matt says again. He sounds desperate but Foggy's too drained to respond to him. "Don't. Foggy. Please," he says.

Any other day and those words would have torn Foggy apart, but not tonight. Tonight, Foggy ignores him and makes his way to the door.

Matt says his name several more times but Foggy doesn't even stop to give him one last look goodbye.

He just closes the door and accepts that this is the end of several years of his life that he's never getting back and a man he's never getting over.

XxX

"Gay marriage is legal, Murdock, what do you think of that?" Foggy asked, eager puppy, watching the news.

Matt sat back, letting his hand slip off the pages in front of him. "Same-sex," he said.

"What?"

"Not everyone getting married under the new legislation is gay, Foggy."

"I rolled my eyes at you, Murdock."

Matt laughed. "I could've guessed, but to answer your question – it's about time."

"I know. Some laws – I can't believe we even have to debate them. No brainers, right?"

"To you, maybe."

XxX

Marci picks up on the third ring.

"What are you doing tonight?" Foggy asks the second she says hello.

"Not sure yet," Marci replies. "Isn't this a bit late for a business call, Foggy-bear?"

"Don't play stupid, Marci, you know this isn't a business call."

"Just wanted to hear you say it."

"You should've become a D.A., you know that?"

"Doesn't pay as well. But last I checked, you were a happily taken man, Foggy."

"Yeah, well, you know how details of a case can change at a last moment."

"The blameless Matthew Murdock break your heart, Foggy-bear?"

"Do you want to get laid or not?"

"I see how it is. Come over in an hour."

* * *

A/N: one more chapter to go!

Some footnotes:

1\. U.S. v. Thind was a Supreme Court case in 1923. At the time, only whites and blacks could gain U.S. Citizenship and Thind was a man from India trying to gain U.S. citizenship by arguing that "high-caste Hindus" counted as white because they shared common ancestors with Europeans. The Supreme Court ruled that Thind was not white, thus blocking Indians and many other Asians from gaining U.S. citizenship and even revoking citizenship from some Indians who had previously had U.S. citizenship. (This is a simplified version of what happened, but read up on the case if you feel like being depressed.)

2\. Mary Ellen Wilson was an abused foster child in New York City (oddly enough, she was from Hell's Kitchen) during the 1870's. New York's laws were written so poorly that authorities were reluctant to step in and remove Wilson from her abusive caretakers. She eventually ended up being aided by a lawyer (though he acted as a private citizen and not as a lawyer) from the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. She was removed from her abusive caretaker and her case helped spark a movement to protect children.

3\. "An infinitely gentle, infinitely suffering thing" is a line from my favorite T.S. Eliot poem, "Preludes."


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